by J. C. Gatlin
“Yes, manic depressive overloads. I’m sitting right next to him,” she answered. She noticed the sweat on his forehead was causing the hair color to run, creating an orange smudge along his hair line. Kim's eyes widened and she looked over at Mallory, glancing toward his head, seeing if her friend saw this too. Mallory ignored it and reached over her again, taking the Doctor’s hand.
“I just think it would be fun to have access to all that secret, personal information,” she said. “Come on, Doctor, tell us some of your most warped cases and let me try to figure out who they are.”
“No.” The Doctor shook his head. “You know, I can’t talk about my patients.”
“There’s some pretty sick tickets living in Stillwater.”
“I will give you that,” he said thoughtfully.
Mallory released his hand, and he folded it in his lap. “Since the murder of the Congressman, the number of mental medical emergencies has increased tenfold.”
“So, so sad,” Mallory let out a loud, audible sigh, leaned back into her seat. There was a streak of orange on her fingers and studied it as she spoke. “And that’s why you missed connecting with my friend here for lunch the other day.”
“And New Year’s Eve,” Kim added. “He stood me up twice. Two times. In a row.”
“I know I owe you an apology,” the Doctor said. “But Mallory’s right, I have been working with a particularly disturbed patient lately who has monopolized a great deal of my time.”
“This is the patient who was upset about the Congressman’s murder?” Kim asked.
He smiled. “Did Addison tell you that?”
“Yes.” Kim took a breath and thought about Addison’s story from the other day at the diner. “That and that the Congressman’s murder is connected to another murder that occurred back in the Seventies.”
“The Congressman’s brother was murdered 25 years ago,” he explained. “But that’s not where it ends. There’s a gruesome, violent connection.”
Kim leaned forward. “What do you mean?”
“The teenage boy who was killed, the Congressman’s brother,” he started, “when they found his body the police revealed that someone had driven some kind of spike through his right eye. As if it were a lobotomy gone wrong.”
Kim and Mallory shrunk back at the same time. The doctor continued.
“The Congressman was found in that exact condition,” he said, leaning forward. The orange smudges along his hairline were expanding. He made a slashing motion with his hand. “They used the ice pick method.”
“What’s that?” Kim asked, staring at his forehead. He smiled and raised a hand, bringing it toward Kim’s face. His fingers were orange.
“It’s when a doctor inserts a thin, metal pipette into the orbital frontal cortex and enters the soft tissue of the frontal lobe.” The doctor’s hand moved toward her eye and he drew a hypothetical line along the side of her nose up toward her eyebrow. “A few simple, smooth, up and down jerks to sever the lateral hypothalamus,” he continued. “All resulting in an immediate reduction of stress for our disturbed patient.”
Kim swiped his hand away. She could smell the hair dye. “Are you saying someone tried to lobotomize the Congressman?”
“I’m saying, if it was, it was a botched lobotomy from some kind of mad scientist. Both brothers died the same way.”
“How could you possibly know that?” Kim stared at him, struggle for words. “I haven’t read anything like that in the papers.”
“I have a friend on the police force,” he explained. “They consult me as I’m a psychiatrist working with…” The doctor paused; he smiled at Mallory. “Some pretty sick tickets living in Stillwater.”
Kim looked at Mallory. Mallory looked at her, then back at the Doctor.
“Kim’s right about the paint ball weekend,” she said quickly. “We haven’t decided if we’re going yet or not. We’ll let you know…”
The seventh inning stretch came with a lot of hubbub from the loud speakers and overhead monitors. On the field, there were a few hits that didn’t amount to much, and then Guns was warming up in the on deck circle again.
This didn't escape Mallory's attention either.
“You’re the best, Lover Boy,” she yelled to him, and in a movement so small but so big he turned, smiled, and nodded to her, in front of the entire crowd. His gesture was caught on the jumbo-tron for everyone to see.
Unfortunately, this time he struck out.
As the team ran back to the dugout, Kim and Mallory got up out of their seats, left the Doctor alone and headed to the ladies room.
“This is the worst set-up ever,” Kim said. Near the concession stand underneath bleachers, they waited in line. “I'm never letting you live this one down.”
“He's just trying to look hip and young.”
Kim noted both derision and sympathy mingled in Mallory's glance. She started to protest, but was interrupted when a man called out to them. Turning, she saw him push his way through the crowd.
The man waved and yelled Mallory's name.
“Addison?” Mallory stuttered, surprised. He was wearing a suit and tie with a baseball cap. She almost didn’t recognize him. “Addison, what are you doing here?”
11
Final Inning
“I’ve been looking for you,” Addison said, out of breath. He looked oddly out of place, wearing a suit and tie with a baseball cap on his head. “I've been looking for you everywhere.”
He glanced at Kim, then studied Mallory. They were standing in line for the ladies restroom and he stepped in line with them. “Doctor Whitman said he was escorting the two of you to this exhibition charity baseball game.”
“You came all the way out to Tampa?” Mallory touched his arm. “Is everything alright?”
He shrugged, as if questioning whether or not he heard her correctly. Reaching out, he took hold of her hand. “I have some news to tell you. Bad news, I’m afraid.”
“Pudd’n Toes… No!” A glazed look of despair spread over her face. “What is it?”
“I'm afraid I will have to go out of town for a few days.” He gripped her hand. “On business.”
Mallory’s face scrunched as if she was concentrating to understand.
“You drove all the way out here to tell me you were leaving town for a few days?” she asked. “Pudd’n Toes, please. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were a stalker.”
“I’m headed to the airport right now and I’m in a fantastic hurry,” he said. “And I didn’t want you to worry that I was missing.”
Mallory laughed, as if suddenly understanding. She glanced at Kim then turned back to him. “Because of Ross,” she said with unwelcome frankness. “You didn’t want me to think you’d disappeared on me like Ross did to Kim.”
Kim sighed as the line moved forward. It was their turn next. Addison continued. “But I can cancel my plans if you’d rather I stay close by... in case something happens.”
Kim looked up as Mallory laughed.
“Get out of here.” Mallory laughed and gently pushed him. It was their turn to walk into the ladies restroom and they were now holding up the line. They stepped forward as she continued talking. “We can manage on our own.”
“I just don’t want to leave you girls alone.” He grabbed her hand, holding her back. Sudden anger lit his eyes. “And you are alone, right?”
Mallory laughed again and pulled her hand from his grip. “I swear you say the oddest things some times.”
An awkward pause grew tight with tension until Mallory finally wrapped her arms around him.
“Everything will be fine. We’ll see you when you get back.” She brushed his beard with her fingers, her breath hot in his ear. “My credit card payment is past due…”
“I’ll mail them a check.” He smiled and winked.
With that, Kim and Mallory disappeared into the restroom. Addison stood watching them a moment, when his cellular phone buzzed inside his breast pocket. He remove
d it from his jacket and flipped it open.
“Hello,” he answered, then turned back toward the entrance. Carrying on a conversation, he tossed his ticket into a metal garbage can and left the stadium.
The bottom of the ninth ushered in and Kim, distracted, didn’t even realize it until she asked, “Wait, is this the last inning?”
“They’re quarters,” Mallory corrected her, shaking her head in mock embarrassment.
They were back in their seats again, and this time Mallory was sitting in the middle between Kim and Dr. Whitman. In response to Kim’s question, he said, more sighed, “Not if they don’t score. They’re tied.” Then he motioned to Mallory. “Gunz is up this inning.”
Mallory leaned forward and looked out onto the field. The game was tied. The bases were loaded. This was actually kind of exciting.
Gunz stepped up to home plate, beginning a ritual that all fans knew well. Feet spread, he leaned back on his hips, rotated to his left a couple of times, then to his right. Loosened his shoulders. He tapped his bat on the edge of the plate, settled in, and Mallory rose. The stadium was silent.
A young, unknown closer for Tampa stared him down, wound up, threw.
It was a good pitch. Gunz leaned back. Swung. CRACK! Every head in the stadium raised, following the ball as it shot out of the park.
Cheers erupted in the stadium. It brought every player off the bench and they swarmed the field. Children from the cancer center rushed out, and they jumped, hugged and high-fived one another at the mound with the athletes.
The Doctor thanked the girls for a wonderful afternoon and invited them to get drinks with him. His hair dye was now running down in orange streaks along his forehead and neck. The girls couldn't take their eyes off it. Mallory declined his offer, as she and Kim were escorted into the club house as special guests of Gunz Gonzales.
In the clubhouse, surrounded by a celebrating team, Kim and Mallory found Gunz. He greeted the girls and his jersey was unbuttoned and open, showing off his pectoral muscles.
“I told you I should’ve worn the chiffon,” Mallory said to Kim. After thirty minutes, she tossed Kim the keys to her Miata.
“Gunz is taking me into downtown Tampa tonight,” she said with a wink.
Kim drove Mallory’s little Mazda Miata home in the early setting darkness of winter. As expected, she could see Zeus in the front bay window, staring intently out the glass, waiting for her to return. He barked as she entered the townhome. Zeus was excited to see her, and Kim fed him and took him outside.
Mrs. Roundtree was walking Little Rosie, her Pekingese, at the same time, and Zeus lit up in a terror, threatening to eat the little dog. Rosie yelped back, tugging on her leash. Mrs. Roundtree had to pick the little fur ball up in her arms as Kim struggled to hold back Zeus.
“That dog needs tranquilizers,” she said to Kim, wagging a finger on her free hand. “Because of that militarized attack dog, the landlord is thinking about adding a no pets clause to all our leases.”
“I heard,” Kim said as she yanked Zeus back with all her might. She was tugging him across the lawn back toward her townhome just as the phone was ringing.
Kim could hear the urgent brrrrrng-brrrrrng-brrrrrng from the parking lot, and rushed inside to answer it. Curious and excited now, Zeus followed. Collapsing into the old recliner in the living room, she reached for the receiver. “Hello?”
There was no answer. Only breathing.
“Is someone there?”
A quiet, masculine voice murmured another Pablo Neruda poem across the line. He read it with a blistering fervor. His voice swelled with an urgent passion that left Kim breathless. Static crackled again, then the line went silent.
“Ross… Are you still there?”
He didn’t answer, but she could hear him breathing.
Rising out of the recliner, she carried the phone to the front door, its black cord stretching across the living room. Listening to the breathing on the other end, Kim shut and locked the door.
She then moved to the front bay window and peeked outside. The moon had long since vanished and the night sky was uncharacteristically black and forbidding; an angry wind howled and rattled the glass. She paid no attention to it as she stared out into the dark parking lot. There, she noticed it.
A red BMW.
There were no lights. The car was not running. But someone was sitting in the driver’s seat, watching her.
Addison Gaynor, she thought.
“Are you still there?” Her voice drifted into a hushed whisper.
For a second, she considered stepping out-side. What was he doing out there? Didn't he have a plane to catch? Or was he waiting for Mallory? Or was he watching her? Kim focused her eyes, trying to see through the night. The figure was merely a silhouette inside the car. It may not even have been human. Possibly a coat or the head rest. Or maybe it wasn’t even Addison’s car at all.
She could still hear him breathing into the phone.
“Hello?” When she tried to speak, her voice wavered. “Addison?”
The line clicked and a dial tone blared.
Startled, Kim pulled the blinds shut. As the dial tone shrieked from the receiver in her hand, she returned it to the base on the end table.
She caught herself glancing uneasily over her shoulder.
I’m just spooking myself, she thought and laughed at her uneasy nature. When she opened the blinds again, the car was gone. A moment later, a silver Porsche pulled up and parked. Mallory stepped out with Gunz Gonzales. Taking hold of his hand, she led him inside her townhome.
She’d better be more careful, Kim thought. She wondered if Addison was trying to catch her in the act.
Curling up in her old recliner, Kim sat with every light on in the townhome. She heard every creak as the old building settled and jumped each time the wind rapped on the windows. She saw faces from the corners of her eyes, but when she turned her head, there was no one there. Ghosts, she thought.
When the sun finally rose the next morning, Kim had been awake for hours waiting. It didn’t matter. Later today, she would be reunited with Ross.
He was waiting for her.
* * * * * * *
Deep in the wooded areas and cow pastures behind the Flying J Truck Stop, police found the blue Camero and towed it away. Afterwards, four patrol men combed the lake.
The blood trail was the first indication that foul play had occurred. And searching the dark waters and swampy marshlands, two officers found the body lying face down in the brush. When they turned it over, they found Ross McGuire's corpse, stiff with rigor mortis and writhing with insects.
From his right eye socket protruded a wooden awl handle.
12
Dark Places
Friday, January 14, 2000
6:30 PM
“Oh, Ross...”
Kim sat in her bedroom and stared critically at the image reflected in the vanity mirror, wondering if she could ever look like Julia Roberts in The Runaway Bride. Or even Pretty Woman. She styled her hair for an hour before deciding to wear it down. Five minutes later, she debated whether to pin it back up again.
As her mind raced with everything she wanted to say when she saw him, her hands, hidden from sight, twisted nervously in her lap. Where have you been? Why have you been so elusive? Will things be different now? Then Mallory's voice echoed somewhere deep inside, saying, “Are you sure it's Ross who set this up?”
Shaking her head, she abolished all the dread from her thoughts. She focused on Ross.
Zeus lay at her feet and watched her intently. She glanced down at him, then gave him a quick pat between the ears.
Moving back to the other side of the loft, she flipped through the assortment of tan and navy clothes crammed into the impossibly small four-by-two closet. She literally had nothing to wear. Sighing, she wanted to cry.
Tonight was the night, she told herself. After five weeks, four days and fifteen and a half hours, she was about to see him again. She had so much
to say. So many questions to ask. But beyond that, she really just wanted him to hold her again. To make love to her. To sit up into the wee hours of the night talking about all the little things that had occurred during the day and all the little things lovers tell to each other in the night.
That’s when it occurred to her. The little white chiffon slip of a dress hung limp in the closet. She couldn’t wear that, could she? Could she even wear a bra in that dress? Kim smiled, and slipped the dress off the hanger.
It was perfect. Ross would die when he saw her walking into the dimly lit Italian restaurant wearing this dress. Fall out of his chair, hit the floor, and die.
Zeus cocked his head, still watching her from his position on the floor next to the vanity. Kim held up the dress for him to see.
“He'll hit the floor when he sees me in this,” she told him. He let out a short whimper then yawned.
Ignoring him, Kim slipped into the dress and adjusted the sequined straps over her shoulders. She studied her reflection in the mirror, and nodded. Sexy. Daring. So unlike anything the Old Kim would wear. It was perfect.
She shook her head again, banishing all the doubt into the darkest recess of her mind. An expression of satisfaction shined in her eyes. It was Ross who gave her the poetry book. It was Ross who was calling her. And it would be Ross waiting for her at the restaurant. And once he saw her in this dress, he’d be waiting for her to forgive him and take him back. Waiting to rekindle their love.
Just like she had done time and again.
Kim stepped out of the bedroom loft and made her way down the spiral staircase. Zeus immediately jumped up and followed her. A knock at the door startled them both as Zeus rushed past her down the steps and headed to the door. She cautiously walked over and looked through the peep hole.
The psychiatrist was standing on the porch. He knocked again. Hesitating, Kim sighed, glanced at Zeus then opened the door.
Dr. Whitman grinned.