Killer Image

by Tyson, Wendy

  Allison’s jaw clenched. “No. Never mind.” She sounded resigned. “I promised Maggie, no ASPCA. I’ll keep him for now if I have to.”

  “Maggie?”

  “A client. A former client, actually.”

  Mia stood up. “Since when do you take clients’ dogs?”

  “Since I was trying to bond with an oppositional teenager.” She gave Mia the gory details, ending with her confrontation with McBride earlier in the day. “We’re through now. But I can’t go back on my word on this dog. I promised Maggie.”

  Mia felt her pulse quicken at the mention of McBride. There were rumors: job losses, broken deals, country club cancellations, all following fallings-out with the congressman. She knew of him from her image consulting work and through Edward. The Main Line was a large suburb but, at its core, a small town. The big players knew each other. And so McBride had played golf with Edward on occasion, and even Edward, arrogant ass that he was, didn’t trust him.

  She handed Allison the leash she’d brought from her car earlier, and then jotted a veterinarian’s name on a piece of blank paper.

  Mia said, “Stay away from Hank McBride, Allison. He’s a powerful man, more powerful than his political title warrants. He comes from money, and he’s not afraid to throw it around.”

  “You know him?”

  “I’ve met him. He and Edward used to play golf together.”

  Mia considered the other part of Allison’s story: that Maggie McBride was being questioned by police. She imagined that the threat to McBride’s family status, to the image of the McBrides as an all-American unit, would make him even more dangerous. And the congressman’s visit to Allison, an indication that he somehow blamed Allison, silly as it was, made the whole situation that much more worrisome.

  She said, “Stay away from Maggie, too, Allison. Any connection to the McBrides can only cause you trouble. Remember my first rule of imaging consulting?”

  Allison smiled. “How could I forget? ‘Know your limits.’”

  “Exactly. If you can’t fix it, the problem belongs to someone else.”

  Allison nodded toward Brutus. “What about him?”

  Mia laughed. “I’m afraid Brutus needs more help than any of us can give him. From an image consultant’s standpoint, he’s beyond redemption. But I think there’s a carve-out in the consultant handbook for hopeless canines.”

  When Hank came in, Sunny was lying down, a cool towel over her eyes. He slammed the door shut and then plopped down on her bed. She felt his hand on her shoulder, rough fingers digging into her flesh. She could hear his breathing, rough-edged and excited. Oh god, no, she thought. Not now.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he said. “Even like that.”

  His fingers pinched her breast through the thin material of her blouse. She peeked from beneath the towel, expecting to find him looking at her with that lascivious stare that meant he had other things on his mind. He didn’t disappoint.

  “Hank—”

  “Come on. It’s been weeks since we’ve done it. You know how I get when you deny me.”

  Today she didn’t have the stomach for it. Not on top of Catherine’s constant complaining and Maggie’s...well, the Maggie situation, as she’d come to think of it. Worry about her daughter loomed over every waking moment and haunted her restless dreams. She’d never understood Maggie. Unlike her own childhood, Maggie had everything. Money. A beautiful house. A private education.

  Growing up in Georgia, an olive-skinned girl in a peaches-and-cream world, Sunny knew only isolation and poverty. But not Maggie. Yet Maggie had thrown it all away, scorned everything her parents’ offered with a contempt that stabbed and insulted. Sunny both loved and hated her daughter, and that fact alone was difficult to bear. She had had such high hopes for the Campbell woman. Another failure. Another waste of time.

  “What do you want?” she said to Hank, careful to keep her tone neutral.

  “I want you to want it, too.”

  “Well, that’s not going to happen, Hank.”

  “Then I’ll settle for your submission.”

  She toyed with whether to refuse. He’d let her, but she’d pay for it in other ways. He was a vindictive little boy at heart. She knew she could pretend to want it—to want him—but she was so scared and exhausted that she just didn’t have it in her. Better just to let him have his way and get it over with.

  She said, “Fine.”

  He pulled the towel from her head. “Sit up.”

  She pushed her way into a sitting position, temples throbbing.

  His eyes followed the curves of her body. “Get undressed,” he said. He watched as she unbuttoned her blouse and slid it off her shoulders. “Yes,” he said, and smiled.

  When Sunny was bare, he turned her over, so her head was facing the head board. She could hear the unzipping of his pants, the brush of material against skin as he pulled his trousers down. She let her mind drift, so she didn’t quite feel Hank’s rough entry, his hands pulling her head back, his teeth on her shoulder. It only took a minute. It always took a minute.

  When he was done, he pushed her down on the bed and collapsed on top of her. She could feel his wetness running down her thigh. She forced her mind elsewhere.

  “I made a few calls,” Hank said into her ear. “You distracted me and I forgot to tell you.”

  Sunny was having trouble breathing. She lay still, hoping he’d shut up and go away.

  “I called Allison Campbell’s graduate program. She was telling the truth. She left before she finished her dissertation.”

  “So?” Sunny said into the pillow, because she knew he expected her to respond.

  “Don’t you find that curious? Why would someone go through years of school and give up before finishing? Allison hardly seems a quitter.” He rolled off her, onto his back. Sunny rolled over, too, and tried not to look at him lying there, that arrogant look on his face.

  “So I tracked down a former colleague, a nurse,” he said. “Allison used to work at a residential treatment home for messed up kids. Place is closed down now, but I had my assistant do a little digging.”

  Sunny was tired. She wanted sleep. She didn’t care about Allison Campbell, revenge for perceived wrongs, posturing for the sake of the media, or any of Hank’s obsessions. She wanted to close her eyes and drift away. But she said, “What did the person say?”

  Hank rolled onto his side. “Seems our Allison was involved with another girl. Years ago. A girl who ran away to be a prostitute. There was a scandal. Allison was blamed.”

  “How could that be Allison’s fault?” Sunny said.

  “The woman didn’t say, exactly. Hinted that Allison’s relationship with the girl was inappropriate.” He grabbed Sunny’s arm and shook it. “Don’t you see? Our girl has a past. A person with a past is vulnerable. We can use this, Sunny. If we need to.” He stood and pulled his pants up over his thighs.

  “If Maggie is arrested, why would we bother?”

  “I don’t like that woman.”

  “That’s your ego talking.”

  “Bullshit. We hired her and Maggie became more defiant, not less. And now this mess. Campbell never signed the nondisclosure. We have no way to get at her.” He paused. “That woman’s involved somehow. For all we know she put Maggie up to it.”

  “You don’t really believe that, Hank. Let it go. For Maggie.”

  “For Maggie? Maggie started this.”

  “Maggie’s a child.” Sunny, her eyes heavy, shook her head. “You never used to be this—”

  “Mean?” Hank sighed and tilted his head. Sunny got a glimpse of the confident, thoughtful man she’d fallen in love with. Long ago, they had been in love.

  “Yes, Hank. Mean.”

  Hank sat next to her. “I prefer to think of myself as practical, darling. When you’re a politician, you need to
mind your reputation. Let one person walk on you, and the whole world follows suit.”

  Sunny heard him, but just barely. Her last image before drifting off to sleep was of Arnie Feldman, lifeless and bloody, as he must have been the day he was killed. God help Maggie and Allison Campbell, she thought. She clutched the blanket to her chest. God help us all.

  Seventeen

  Late that night, Allison could hear the dog scratching at the kitchen barricades. Brutus didn’t like being confined, and she couldn’t say she blamed him. Maybe he could come up. It wasn’t like he had mange, after all. What had the vet called it? Allergic dermatitis. From living in the woods. He’d been bathed and inoculated and de-wormed. Okay, so he was ugly. As Mia had said, so what?

  She heard him whimper and then bark. She threw back the covers and crept down the hall. In the first guest room, she rummaged through the mess in the walk-in closet until she found an old comforter. She made a bed in the hallway and then went downstairs and let him up.

  He jumped ecstatically, wagging his tail and nipping at her hands. “Okay, okay.” She stifled a laugh. “Now don’t get any ideas. This is all just temporary.”

  Brutus followed her into her bedroom. “Oh, no! In the hallway. Right there.” She walked back out into the hall and patted the comforter. “Here you go.”

  Brutus stood in her bedroom doorway, an expectant look in his eyes.

  “Fine.” Allison sighed wearily. She dragged the blanket to her room and placed it next to her bed. “That’s as good as it’s gonna get.”

  She lay back down and turned off her light. Brutus’s breathing was labored and loud. It had a wheezy rhythm to it that made her sleepy. White noise.

  Br-r-ring. Br-r-ring.

  Who now? Allison reached for the telephone, expecting Vaughn or Jason. “Hello?”

  “It’s Maggie.”

  Brushing off Mia’s warnings, Allison said, cautiously, “Are you okay?”

  “How’s Brutus?”

  “Fine. He’s here next to me.”

  “Can I see him?”

  Oh boy. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Maggie. You and I, well, we’re not working together anymore.”

  “I know. I’m going to boarding school next term.”

  “I’m sorry, Maggie.”

  “I don’t care about that. I just want to see Brutus.”

  Allison took a deep breath. She wasn’t deaf to the pleading in Maggie’s voice. But she thought of Hank McBride, of his desperate behavior in her office. He was a man on the edge and pushing him over that precipice wasn’t going to do his daughter any good. “No, Maggie. Not now.”

  “Please, Allison? I won’t bother you, I promise. I just want to see him...because ...everything else is not so good right now...” Her voice broke and she stopped talking. Allison could hear her quiet sobs through the line.

  For Lord’s sake, how could she say no to that? Judgment out the window, she said, “When?”

  “Tomorrow afternoon? After school? A friend will bring me by.”

  “Okay. Just this once.”

  “Thank you, Allison! I mean that. You’re not so bad.” She paused. “Give Brutus a kiss for me, okay? I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Allison turned the phone off. She was so tired. First Hank, then Mia, now Maggie. And her mother. She couldn’t forget her family, always in the background, like a toxic cloud threatening to rain down misery. Ugh. Allison, get a grip, she thought. You’re being a little dramatic. Still, what happened to her neat little life with its clear rules and hospital corners?

  Allison slid off the bed and onto the floor. She rubbed Brutus’s head for a minute, gathering strength, then reached under the bed for the box that she’d stored there years ago and had felt, for some reason, compelled to keep. She opened the box...and out poured a Pandora’s mix of emotions.

  Every emotion, it seemed, except hope.

  “Tell me more about home, Violet,” Allison had said years ago. It was late, maybe two A.M., and the other girls at the Meadows were sleeping. The dorm was dark. From her vantage spot on the couch, Allison could see shards of the living room illuminated by the glow of moonlight: navy blue furniture, a brown carpet, both juice-stained and littered with cigarette burns. Violet lay sprawled on the floor, her head propped up on a couch pillow, her legs buried under the regulation scratchy brown blanket pulled from her bed. The two insomniacs. Allison imagined a fly on the wall would’ve had to strain to hear them talk, so trained they were at keeping their voices low.

  “You’ve read my file.”

  “Okay, so I know what your caseworker knows. Now tell me something new. Something positive.”

  Violet rolled over so she was facing Allison. She pulled her little book flashlight from under her and positioned the head under her chin. She flicked the light on. In the glow, her skin took on a ghostly pallor. With one slim finger, Violet pulled back her lip and showed Allison the blank space where her eyetooth had been.

  “Aunt Kay,” she said. “Cousin Jimmy knocked it loose, but Aunt Kay punished me by pulling it out with pliers.”

  Allison flinched. She reached down and stroked Violet’s hair. “How was that positive, Violet?”

  Violet grinned, but there was a hollowness to the smile that left Allison chilled. “When my father found out, he tried to strangle Kay.”

  Allison remembered that from her file. It was the incident that had landed John “Junior” Swann back in prison.

  “Who’s Sparky?”

  Three months after John Junior went back to jail, Violet was due to return home. It was late September, and Allison had been looking forward to celebrating the holidays with Violet, but her county decided Violet’s residential money had run out and Violet needed to leave the Meadows. Her father had been let out of prison only to land back in for grand theft auto, but her grandmother was willing to take her back.

  Doc pushed for foster care, but Violet wanted none of that. Allison hated the idea of Violet going back to her family, especially without the misguided protection of her father, but, even more so, she didn’t want Violet moved to another family where she wasn’t really wanted and where she might fail. And so Allison had campaigned on Violet’s behalf, negotiating with Doc and Violet’s caseworker so that Violet could go home.

  “Sparky’s a friend of a friend.” Violet stared at her shoes while stealing glances at Allison out of the corner of her eye, a gesture that always meant she was hiding something. “How’d you hear about him?”

  “I listen to dorm gossip.” In truth, all Allison heard was a name, one whispered in awe down the dorm when the residents thought the staff were too stupid or inattentive to notice. Allison thought he was a teenage boy, someone from a neighboring town whom all the girls had a crush on. She assumed he was harmless.

  Allison watched the way Violet’s fingers drummed the chair. Nerves. She’d noticed that Violet had grown her hair out in the last few weeks and had started wearing makeup. She seemed thinner than ever, but her skin glowed from plenty of milk and fresh fruit. Allison had wondered, not for the first time, how Violet would survive back home. As always, she pushed the thought away. You have to let her go, Doc had said just that morning. You’re too attached to her. You’re not seeing clearly.

  “Your final home visit is tomorrow, Violet. Are you sure you’re ready?”

  Violet looked up and met Allison’s gaze, head on. “Trust me, Allison. Please.” When Allison simply held the stare, Violet said, “Did my file tell you I found my mom after she’d killed herself?”

  Allison shook her head. All she knew was that Millicent Swann had committed suicide. Alcohol and pills. She braced herself for more. She wasn’t sure why Violet was telling her this—maybe to change the subject—but experience had taught her that the girls were most open right before they left. And it seemed Violet would be no exception. So she waited through the si
lence.

  “I was nine and in third grade at Our Lady of Guadalupe,” Violet said, her voice a low murmur. “It’d been the best year of my life. Dad was home and working at a gas station. I set my alarm clock to wake the two of them up before school and we all had cereal together in the morning. Cookie Crisp and Cap’n Crunch. Sometimes we’d fight over the prize, but it was a play fight, and, in the end, they’d give it to me. Sometimes Mom didn’t want to wake up and I’d have to shake her and yell till she’d roll over and pull me in the bed with her to shut me up. I loved that, when she’d hold me, and I’d pretend all was right and we’d live in our little apartment forever.”

  Violet’s eyes possessed a faraway glaze. She was no longer talking to Allison, but was lost in the land of memories. The office was cold, and Allison could smell the stinging disinfectant housekeeping used to keep the dorm germs at bay. Allison thought of her own mother, the mornings she’d spent wrapped in her mother’s frail arms when a migraine was finally subsiding, and she understood Violet’s ability to pretend the world was sane and just.

  “It was a Friday, Al. Mrs. Colliver gave me an A on my social studies project. I wrote about Martin Luther King, and she said it was the best paper she’d ever seen a third-grader write, and I believed her because Mrs. Colliver never, ever smiled, but that day she did. So I thought maybe my parents would celebrate and order a pizza or we could go to Burger King and I could have a Whopper. I used to love those, before I knew what they really were.”

  She took a breath and let it out in one long sigh. “But my mom was dead. Her arm was across her face, and her body was so still I knew something was wrong. When I couldn’t wake her, I crawled in bed next to her and prayed. I prayed and prayed just like the nuns said to do and hoped when I opened my eyes she would be awake and smiling and proud of my A, but she wouldn’t wake up, no matter how many Hail Mary’s I said.”

  Tears ran down Violet’s face, making her mascara smear in ghostly circles around her eyes. Allison could picture that little girl trying to glue her world back together with the recitation of some magical words. Allison had wiped her own eyes and waited till Violet said her good-byes to her mother, good-byes that were long overdue.