The Delilah Complex

by MJ Rose

  I am not made of ice. Pushed, I can get just as annoyed as anyone else. And yet, in this setting, understanding what I did about the stress these women were under—and Shelby in particular—I made an extra effort to control my own emotions so I could help them with theirs.

  “Shelby, I didn’t talk to the press to get more patients. Why would you think that?”

  “We’re giving you power,” she said.

  In her world, this was a transaction and power was her currency. Several of the women in the room nodded their heads, agreeing, understanding what she said. The very reason the society had been created was to allow them to act out their desires to metaphorically—and perhaps literally, from what I had seen on the videotape—be on top.

  “You see it as power, but I don’t. You hired me to help you cope with a disturbing situation. That doesn’t put me in a position of weakness any more than it puts you in a position of strength. This isn’t a battle between us.”

  “And it won’t be as long as you don’t talk to the press.”

  Davina had been listening intently, but saying very little. “Shelby, back off, will you? Can we just talk about what we might be able to do? How we feel about this? How to handle all this shit? I go to the office. I snap at people. I’m angry. Then I get sad. I want to cry but I’m afraid that, if I let myself cry, my friends or my family will ask me what’s wrong. What the fuck am I supposed to tell them? How do I short-circuit the grieving process so I can get back to my life?”

  “You can’t. You—” I looked around and focused, one after the other, on each of the women. “None of you can short-circuit this process. That’s why it’s important to talk it out here. To feel free to let out whatever you want to.” My glance stopped at Ginny.

  “I have something I want to let out,” she said. “I think I know who might be behind this.”

  Forty-Nine

  Nina must have been waiting for the group to leave because she came to my office within five minutes of the last woman going. “Can we talk?” she asked.

  I nodded. “But not now. I have to get home for Dulcie.”

  “Do the two of you have plans for dinner?”

  “No.”

  “Why don’t I go home with you? We can walk. Talk on the way. Then the three of us can get a bite.”

  She didn’t wait until we reached the street but started in as we descended the staircase from the second floor to the lobby. “We have to work this out,” she said. “It’s not good for you or me. And it’s not good for the institute.”

  It had been several days since our argument, and that was a first for us. In all the years since my mother had died, Nina and I hadn’t ever had an argument that had lasted longer than a few hours.

  “It’s even worse for the four men who are dead,” I said.

  She opened the heavy door that led to the street. It was evening already, but like so many other days that fall, the weather was relatively warm. I was wearing a blazer with a sweater thrown over my shoulders and knotted around my neck. Nina had on a camel-colored shawl, theatrically draped around her.

  The stores were well lit, and as we passed boutique after boutique I saw the two of us mirrored in the glass. I was so used to seeing our reflections, side by side.

  “Are you going to change your mind about how I’ve been handling the Scarlet Society?”

  “It’s the police I have the problem with,” Nina said. “That and why, knowing how I felt, you brought the issue up in our weekly meeting.”

  “I didn’t know I was being censored.”

  “Can you stop acting like a chastised teenager and lay off the sarcastic tone?”

  “Will that help? I’m still not going to agree with you about this. Things are only getting worse,” I said, and told her what had happened in the group.

  That took us to Seventy-fourth Street, where we stopped and waited for the light to turn so we could cross. “We’ve fought before, but we’ve never been on such opposite sides of the argument. I want advice from someone who’s willing to help me explore my options, and you are rigidly holding to your own position.”

  Her eyebrows came together and her eyes narrowed. “You are still doubting my judgment?”

  “You taught me to look at every side of an argument when dealing with patients. To assume nothing. But you’re being stubborn about this.”

  “Morgan, do you know the name of any person who is going to be targeted?”

  “You know I don’t.”

  “Do you know the name of anyone who is targeting members of this society?”

  “I don’t. One of the women in the group thinks she might. But that isn’t the point.”

  The light changed and we crossed together, still in step.

  “It is. What you should be doing is working with these women to help them deal with their grief and counseling them about how they feel about their activities. And while you are doing that, you should be working on your paper about the changing level of sexually aggressive behavior among women who have assumed high levels of power.”

  “Do you care that four men have been killed by some madman?”

  “You’re insulting me, Morgan.”

  “I can’t believe you are being so stubborn.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s not as black and white as you are making it out to be. These men are being killed. The only thing they have in common is the Scarlet Society. One of the members of that society is a reporter who is breaking the stories, who shows manic tendencies and exhibits signs of stress and guilt. And who has hidden her profession from the other group members and hidden her knowledge of what ties the men together from the police and the New York Times. Add to that another member who told me tonight about some guy who was paranoid and possibly bipolar, who had left the group before the killings started, and who seemed to have a lot of anger toward several of the other male members. So that’s two possible suspects. And the police don’t know about either of them.”

  “The police know the reporter. You told me they do. And I’m sure they think she’s a suspect.”

  “Based on the fact that she’s breaking the stories. Yes, possibly. But they’d take that much more seriously if they also knew she’d had sex, for God’s sake, with every one of those men, is feeling completely unattractive and is jealous of the younger women in the group.”

  We’d stopped for another light. The wind blew and a crimson leaf fell off a tree and across Nina’s face. She brushed it away and it drifted to the pavement.

  “We have a job to do, Morgan. That job does not include doing the work of the New York Police Department.”

  “We are doctors. Our job includes saving people’s lives.”

  “That’s very naive. We just do the best we can. We’re not superheroes.”

  “I agree with you. That’s why we can’t make decisions like the one you are making. In other words, we have to remain silent at any cost?”

  But the light had changed and Nina had started crossing the street. She hadn’t heard my question. Or she hadn’t known how to answer it.

  Fifty

  He had only slept for four hours, and fitfully at that, because he was anxious. The New York Times was always delivered to his apartment door at five-thirty. Would there be another article this morning? Another mention of the last murdered man? Another criticism of how long the police were taking to make any headway with the cases?

  He padded into his kitchen in his Frette terry-cloth robe and turned on the kettle. While the water boiled, he took out a Limoges cup and saucer, a silver teaspoon and a box of loose black tea. He filled a bamboo basket with the tea leaves, pinched a sprig of mint off the plant on his windowsill, rinsed it and dropped it in the cup just as the kettle started to sing.

  As he poured the water, he heard the thud of the paper on his doormat and left the tea to steep while he retrieved the Times.

  Sitting on the couch, the cup on his coffee table, he scanned the front page. Nothing. It took about
five minutes to search through the National section and the Metro section, looking for any press about the Scarlet Society murders.

  Nothing.

  This was going to ruin his day. Was going to make the low-level depression he never escaped escalate to midlevel.

  No. He couldn’t give in.

  Abandoning the paper, he returned to the kitchen, heated up the water again, toasted an English muffin, slathered it with raspberry jam from Fauchon in Paris, and took his breakfast back into the living room. He knew what to do. He’d done it before and it had helped.

  Half of the muffin in hand, he stood in front of the wall of articles and, beginning with the very first, reread them. He didn’t skip a word, and paid even more attention to the sentences he’d underlined with the red marker. Some particularly pleased him; others annoyed him.

  He had read each of these articles dozens of times by now, but it still never got boring. He loved seeing the black type on the newsprint, the way the serifs bled into the paper, the way the lines marched like soldiers up and down the page, in perfect formation. More than once, he lost the meaning of the words, forgetting that each connected to the next to make a phrase, which added to the next made a sentence, which added to the next made a paragraph. Instead, he saw the straight lines and curved forms, the dots and dashes and negative spaces between them. He ran his finger over the designs, seeing the patterns in the way the margins broke and how the indents made holes. And there was the abstract design of his marker—the only color amid the monochromatic type. An artist, he appreciated the way he’d slashed through the colorless information with red, marking all mentions of when the loved ones had last seen the victims alive and what the mood and manner of the men had been. He’d also highlighted direct quotes from the police—specifically Detective Noah Jordain. No matter how well he couched what he said, it was all too clear to Paul that Jordain really had not made any inroads in identifying a suspect or discovering the whereabouts of any of the bodies.

  Paul had starred—again in red marker—every instance in which the reporter had hinted at what the connection between the men was. It was very subtle. He wondered how many people had picked up on it. Had the police?

  “The scarlet numbers on the bottom of his feet were…”

  In each article, Betsy Young had referred to the color of the markings that way. It was always scarlet. Not red, which would have been a much more obvious choice. Or vermilion, which probably would have been the choice of anyone educated in the study of color. Not bloodred, which would have been slightly flowery for the New York Times, but a possibility considering the crime.

  No. She had used scarlet as her adjective of choice.

  Who was she, and what did she know?

  He thought of going down to the Times offices and meeting her. Trying to trick her into revealing her knowledge of the Scarlet Society.

  But how?

  He resumed rereading.

  There was one section he’d accentuated for entirely different reasons. He looked at these two paragraphs now, focusing on them, wondering yet again about this sexpert and how smart she really was.

  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 victims’ 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.

  He liked Dr. Snow’s observations. He’d heard about the Butterfield Institute but he hadn’t been there yet. In his search for the right doctor to help him, the institute had been next on his list. Maybe it was time to go there. He had reason enough with his personal problems. He could make a convincing case that the purpose of his visit was other than to discover just what Young had shown Dr. Snow, and what she really believed about the motivation of the killer. He was desperate to hear someone describe the photographs to him in person. To listen to the soft and hard sounds of the words that would detail the malevolent restraints and the defiled bodies. To actually have someone talk to him about the black-and-blue marks and what they suggested about how painful and humiliating the abuse was that these men had suffered before they had been killed.

  Walking back into the kitchen, Paul heated the water once more. The next cup of tea was even weaker than the last. Too much caffeine too early wasn’t a good idea. He hadn’t taken his medication yet. He had another fifteen minutes before he would open the amber pill bottle and spill the poison into his palm. The calm would be welcome, the dullness would not. Every day he teetered on the edge of not taking the pills. Occasionally he didn’t. Those days he was not himself. Or he was more himself than on the other days. His dick could get hard again if he didn’t take the pills. It would swell and rise up and remind him of what it felt like to be in control of his own body. But his mind would rebel. His head would explode. He would want to lie on the pavement on the sidewalk and have women walk all over him with their high heels. He would want to wipe out every other man who got in the way of him and those women. He would be on fire with wanting and hurting. And then he would crash. The depression would overwhelm him. Rob him of any desire to eat or sleep or stand or walk or go to the bathroom or make an effort to dress himself.

  It was all too much. It was all enough.

  Abandoning the inadequate tea, he opened a cabinet and pulled out the thick New York City phone book. Flipping through the thin pages, he found what he was looking for, and using the bright red marker that he took from his bathrobe pocket, he copied down the address and phone number of the Butterfield Institute.

  Fifty-One

  Despite the soft, late afternoon sunlight Paul Lessor had not taken off his black wraparound sunglasses.

  “I have been to quite a few therapists,” he answered as he crossed his right leg over his left knee. The perfect crease in his pants broke.

  I wanted to see his eyes. “Is the light too bright, Paul? Do you want me to lower the blinds?”

  “Yes. That would be better.”

  I got up and walked to the window. In its reflection I could see that his head did not turn to follow me, but rather he looked over at the door as if checking to see that it was closed. His movements were slightly slower than normal. I recognized the lethargy and guessed that he was on an antipsychotic drug.

  We’d get to that.

  After returning to my seat, I expected he’d take off his glasses and was disappointed when he didn’t. “I closed the drapes. You can take off your sunglasses,” I suggested.

  He made a move to do what I asked but his arm stopped midair and hung there momentarily before he lowered it again. “I need to leave my current therapist,” he said. “Leave him. Sooner than later.”

  “Tell me about him and why you don’t want to stay. You don’t have to give me his name if you don’t want to, but I’d appreciate knowing it.”

  “Why do we need to talk about him?”

  “I’d like to understand why you are looking for someone new before I refer you to someone in the institute. I want to choose the right doctor.”

  “You’re going to give me a referral?”

  “Yes. This is a consultation.”

  “I know that. But I thought it was a consultation with you. So you could be my therapist.”

  “I might be, but that’s not how we work here. First we have to do an evaluation. I might not be the right doctor for you.”

  He shook his head, and the well-styled sandy hair fell into his eyes. “I really came here to see you. To be with you.”

  The sexual undertone was barely there, but I heard it. The way his voice had lowered to another register on the last few words. The sly way his lips formed
the words and then ended in a half smile.

  “I’m flattered. But may I ask why?”

  “I’ve read about you in the paper. I did my homework. I think we belong together.”

  He was connecting to me too quickly. We had not yet formed any kind of bond. Paul Lessor had projected a relationship prematurely.

  “Are you currently on any medication?”

  He hesitated before he said, “No.”

  I assumed he was lying. He’d waited too long to answer me. I’d know for sure if I could see his eyes, but the dark lenses prevented me from reading him.

  “Have you ever been on medication?”

  “Dr. Snow, I have to ask you something. It’s very important.”

  I nodded.

  “Do you know the reporter who is writing about those murders? The ones where the victims have those red numbers drawn on the bottoms of their feet?”

  “Can you tell me why that matters?”

  “I’m concerned about the situation.”

  “Yes, it’s very serious.”

  “Do you know anything about those killings? Has the reporter shown you the photographs? Do you know something that isn’t in the papers? It’s why I picked you, because the reporter interviewed you specifically.”

  I hoped that my face remained placid, I didn’t give anything away, but a tiny flicker of fear shot through me. I leaned forward, trying to lock eyes with the man who sat across from me, but only guessing where I was looking.

  “Can you tell me why?”

  “Because I am very concerned. I told you that.”

  Instinct warned me that he was connected in some way to the killings.

  “But why are you concerned? Did you know any of those men?”

  “No.”

  “Why are you concerned?”

  “Do you really think it’s a good idea to help that reporter?” he asked, ignoring my question.

  “Why wouldn’t it be?”