“The horse had to be put to sleep, honey,” Lois Paxton said quietly. “From what I understand, Madonna broke her leg in the fall. She was able to get back to the house, but… Well, let’s not talk about that now. I’m just so glad you’re alive. There were a few crucial days when we weren’t sure you’d make it. You came out of the coma, yet there was still a chance you’d be paralyzed and blind—” Her words stopped abruptly, she squeezed Roberta’s hand hard, making her flinch. “You’re going to be just fine. Just fine. You’ll recuperate at home with us. Hanley and Tobie can help. We’ll have that birthday party you missed.”
“That’s one birthday I don’t mind skipping.”
“Nonsense. Oh, I saw your friend Angela in the parking lot. What’s happened with her? Did she get her kids back?”
“Her hearing was yesterday and the case was thrown out. Something about a ‘no true bill,’ whatever that means. Anyway, she’s free and she has her kids back. That’s all that matters. Her parents want her to move to New Mexico, near them. She’s leaving as soon as she can pack up.”
“She’s a nice lady, Angela is. She seems so devoted to those children.”
“She is. I’m going to miss them.”
“Have you been up yet?” her mother asked.
“No.”
Robbi felt the sheet being lifted.
“Your poor legs were all black and blue. But the bruises are fading.” Her mother patted her knee, then tucked the sheet around her again. “Sweetheart, someone wants to say hello.”
Among the mixed scents in the room, Robbi caught a whiff of smokeless tobacco. A familiar male voice accompanied it. “Hello, Robbi, you gave us quite a scare.”
“Hanley. Hi. I hear you saved my life.”
“Got you out of the rain anyway.”
“Thank you.”
“Was the least I could do? Warned you to listen for the thunder, but don’t s’pose you got the chance. Got bushwhacked by the storm, did ya?”
“Bushwhacked is the word.”
“When Madonna come back without you, we figured something bad happened. I followed her tracks and found you out cold in the woods.”
“Hanley, did you see anyone else out there?”
“Anyone else?”
“A large man … with a beard?”
“No, Miss, nobody else.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure as I can be. Why?”
“I thought…” She let the words die, then shook her head. “Nothing.”
The soles of his boots shifted. “Well, I just wanted to wish you well, Robbi,” Hanley said. “Mrs. Paxton, I’ll go on down and pull the car around to the front.”
Roberta and Hanley exchanged goodbyes. She listened to his booted steps go out the door.
Suddenly the scent of watermelon mingled with coconut overpowered her. Robbi raised her head, breathed in. “Tobie?”
“How’d you know I was here?” her sister said.
“Hanley chews, but I don’t think he’s taken to chewing watermelon bubble gum or wearing coconut mousse. Had my mouth watering.”
“Boy, you have a good sniff detector.”
Robbi smiled, took Tobie’s hand. She hesitated before saying, “Tobie, about Madonna—”
Her sister squeezed her hand. “It was an accident. It wasn’t your fault, Rob. Okay?”
“Honey, what was that about someone else out in the storm?” her mother asked.
Now was the time, Roberta told herself. She had to tell someone. “Mom, Tobie, listen, I saw—jeez, how do I say this? Something bizarre happened in the woods that afternoon. The man I asked Hanley about, I… I thought I saw him kill a woman.”
Silence.
“It was raining hard, but… but I swear I saw this man chase down a woman and then … then he strangled her.”
She felt a hand on her arm. “Darling, did this happen before or after you fell?” her mother asked.
Robbi knew what was coming. Although it had been a long time since the other tragedy, she knew they hadn’t forgotten. “After.”
“Honey, you hit your head. You were unconscious when Hanley found you. The mind plays tricks on us.”
“You mean my mind plays tricks on me.”
“I didn’t say that, Robbi.”
“But you meant it.”
Her mother said nothing to dispute her words.
“Robbi, in the past couple years I’ve been all over those hills with Madonna and I’ve never seen anyone,” Tobie said. “I’ve never run into anyone else. No one lives around there.”
Roberta sighed. “I guess it’s possible I was hallucinating. I hope so anyway. Everything was sort of dreamlike. It hurt so bad … and I couldn’t move.”
“Oh, baby,” her mother said. “When I think of you lying out there in the rain, injured and alone, it makes me sick. I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you or Tobie. I just couldn’t stand it… not again.”
“I know. Mama. It’s okay, I’m all right.” She squeezed her mother’s hand.
After everyone had gone, Robbi tried to sleep. Just beneath the wound on her forehead a pulse began to throb. Within an hour she had her first headache.
________
She felt cool fingers on her chin, moving her head from side to side. “Open your eyes wide.” The doctor’s scent filled her nostrils; soap, talc, starch, and, when he spoke, the sugary ingredients of a breath mint. “Good. Good.”
Several feet to her left, she heard a strange stirring sound.
“Dr. Newton, what is that noise? That rustling sound?” She pointed toward the source. “I’ve been hearing it all day.”
“Oh, you must mean the balloons. The air currents have them rubbing together. Looks like a birthday gift.”
“Who are they from?”
A moment later he read, “From the gang at the office.”
She felt disappointment. Sophie had collected her mail. Nothing had come from Donald, not even a card. Had he forgotten her birthday?
“Roberta, your sense perception, does it seem more acute to you? Taste, smell, sound, touch?”
She considered a moment, then replied, “Yes, very much so.”
She heard a pen scratching on paper. “Still having the headaches?”
“Yes.”
“How often?”
She shrugged. “Every other day. Usually with the nightmares. The pain wakes me up.”
“Roberta, I’d like to call in another doctor. I don’t think we should overlook anything concerning your blindness.”
“What kind of doctor?” she asked, knowing full well what his answer would be.
“A psychiatrist.”
Damn.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Roberta sat up in bed, listening to the passionate yet soothing sounds of the mandolins of Harry Geller. The Gypsy music came from a small cassette player on her lap.
Having no concept of time, she wondered how long before Dr. Reynolds would come. Their appointment was for one o’clock.
At the thought of a visit from the psychiatrist, Robbi’s insides cramped. A psychiatrist. How could she have let herself be talked into seeing a psychiatrist? For the blindness, Dr. Newton had said. There’s a good chance the problem is psychosomatic. By reputation only, she knew Reynolds. The reports of his work were admirable. She’d heard he was somewhat eccentric— something about a passion for collecting and restoring old cars—but what did she care about his hobbies as long as he could cure her? If her father could restore her vision, she’d let him treat her, that’s how desperate she was.
Her father had been a psychiatrist, and the power he’d wielded—more accurately the power he wielded because of his profession—had been inconceivable.
When she was ten, not long after Ronnie died, her father had taken her to the state mental institution, to the children’s ward. Leading her by the hand, he had proudly showed her the facilities, the grand tour. The first floor housed incapacitated diapered children in cribs. Each floor thereafter proved more
disturbing than the last. She had been frightened by the intense stares of the young patients, by their compulsion to follow her, to touch her, to try to eat anything they came in contact with. She had begged to go home, petrified he would leave her there. The nightmares haunted her for years.
When the tender strings of “Czardas” came to an end, Robbi felt the tears that had suddenly welled up spill over her lower lashes and flow down her face. She brushed at them impatiently. She couldn’t give in to the music today. She had plenty to feel sorry about, and one day soon she’d take advantage of it and just let go—let the tears gush while she sobbed her heart out— but not today. At least not until after the shrink had come and gone.
Earlier, one of the nurses had combed her hair, working it into a French braid in back. Although Roberta had refused makeup, the nurse had added a touch of blush to cover up that “ol’ hospital pallor and bring out those marvelous cheekbones.”
“Two Guitars” began, one of her personal favorites. The sweet romantic music filled Robbi’s head with visions of purple nights and Gypsy campfires. She leaned her head back and let it take her away.
Before the song was over, Robbi strongly sensed another’s presence. The room seemed to lose a measure of space. She detected a faint odor of aftershave. Despite the music filling her ears, she heard sounds of breathing, of fabric rustling. She kept her eyes closed and waited. After many long moments Robbi asked, “Is someone there?”
“Your hearing is very keen,” a male voice said.
She opened her eyes to more darkness and lifted her head. “Dr. Reynolds?” she asked cautiously.
“Yes, it’s one o’clock, Ms. Paxton.” The voice was closing in. “I believe we have an appointment.”
He had been silently watching her. For how long? She felt a flash of anger at the invasion of her privacy.
“My hearing may be good, Dr. Reynolds, but my inner clock needs some development.” A tightness crept into her voice.
As if reading her mind, he said, “I would have announced myself, but you seemed so captivated by the music, I was reluctant to intrude.”
His voice was soft and soothing—a true shrink’s voice.
She shut off the tape player and waited.
“Dr. Newton tells me you had a blow to the head.”
“That’s correct.” Crisp, stuffy, not her usual casualness. A defense mechanism. She was on guard. Could she ever trust a shrink after her father? She could remember his threats. Be careful, girl… there’s a room for you there, Roberta. If her own father questioned her sanity…?
“Have you always had such keen sensory perception?”
“No.”
“Interesting.’’
“Did Dr. Newton tell you about the nightmare?” she asked.
“He didn’t tell me anything except that you had a serious fall and woke up blind.”
She heard a scraping noise and then his voice came from a lower position than before. She guessed he had pulled up a chair and was sitting.
“I’d like to hear about your experience, if you’d care to talk about it.”
How much should she tell? Go slow. Too little is safer than too much. Robbi wet her lips and began. She told Dr. Reynolds about the accident. She neglected to tell him that while she lay on the rain-soaked ground, injured and unable to move, she saw a man choke a woman to death.
When she finished, he laid a hand on her shoulder and talked of post-trauma and depression. He talked of strength and support.
“Married? Children?” he asked.
“Not yet. My fiancé lives in New York.” She smiled. “He wanted me to visit him there, but instead I chose to go to the mountains. Poor choice, I’m afraid.”
“Ever been to New York?”
“No, but I’ll be moving there soon. Donald’s a stockbroker on Wall Street.”
Why am I telling him this? she wondered. She realized she had a profound need to talk about Donald, about a life before the blindness. Bringing up Donald gave her a sense of normalcy, of a time when problems were easily fixed or fixed themselves. She was going to be all right. Think positive. Don loves me, she told herself. She was certain he’d be sitting at her bedside that very moment, offering his love and support, if he knew she was here.
Dr. Reynolds said he would return in a few days, or sooner if she needed him, then he was gone.
When she was alone, a gut-wrenching pain doubled her over. Donald didn’t know she was in the hospital because he was too damn busy to call.
Oh, God, how would he react when he found out she was blind?
________
Before opening the door of his ‘55 T-bird, Jake Reynolds paused to look up at the fourth floor windows of Washoe Medical Center. He located Roberta Paxton’s window by the shiny bunch of balloons clustered to one side, the sun reflecting off their metallic casings.
The coma, blindness, and nightmares could very well be psychosomatic. Trauma induced. She had come out of the coma, therefore she could regain her sight. To dream of a storm would be in keeping with this sort of trauma, and dreams of being pursued were not uncommon.
He knew of Roberta Paxton from a newspaper account. She had witnessed the killing of a man by his wife shortly before her accident. At this point it was impossible to say for certain if the nightmares and the killing were related, though a strong possibility existed.
He found himself wondering about her fiancé. If ever there was a time when a woman needed the special man in her life, it was now. Yet he was in New York. What kind of a man was he? If Jake were this guy Donald, he sure as hell wouldn’t be three thousand miles away on Wall Street. He’d be at the bedside of the woman he loved.
________
She was the one.
From a small cocktail table in the rear of the room, Joseph Eckker stared at her trim back as she sat alone at the end of the bar, sipping a straight shot of whiskey.
At 3:20 in the morning the place was nearly empty. The bartender leaned against the back of the bar, his tattooed arms folded across his chest, lost in an old Rockford Files rerun on the television. The young blonde stared down into the drink, her hands around the glass, a long, thin cigarette smoldering between her fingers. An old woman dropped a coin in the jukebox and made her selection. The bartender turned and glared at her.
Eckker finished his beer, rose, and with measured steps moved to the bar. From the jukebox Tom Jones asked, “What’s new, pussycat?”
The blond woman turned when she sensed someone behind her. Her gaze swept upward until she was staring into his face with large blue eyes, red-rimmed and smudged with mascara. She had been crying.
She turned back to the bar, lifted her drink, and sipped.
He sensed her fear. She had no reason to fear him.
“Another?” he nodded at her drink.
She shook her head.
He eased onto the stool next to her. She was very pretty. He liked looking at her.
Her eyes darted nervously to the bartender. Then she glanced at him. He smiled. She turned on her stool, offering him a stiff back.
He placed a hand on her shoulder, leaned down, and whispered in her ear, “Too pretty to be so sad.”
She pulled away, trying to dislodge his hand from her shoulder.
“I’d never make you cry.”
She vehemently shook his hand away and jumped from the stool. Without a word or a backward glance, she grabbed her purse and strode off toward the back of the bar. He watched her enter the ladies’ room. As he slid off the stool, he looked around. The bartender, with his back to him, was engrossed in the TV program. The old woman had passed out at the bar, her weathered face a sponge for a puddle of spilled beer.
He went out the front door, stood on a sidewalk littered with cigarette butts, tourist coupons and cocktail glasses, and looked up and down the deserted street.
He walked to the end of the building, then turned left into the alley. Within moments he heard heels clinking along the pavement, coming his way. He sto
od in the shadows, waiting.
A waist-high barricade of black plastic trash bags lined the curb. Opposite them, she was walking briskly. He quickly moved to intercept her. She turned, saw him, and stopped cold.
He was within a foot of her when she spun around toward the street and started to run. The bags tripped her up. She fell into them as he reached for her. The expression on her face changed from fearful to feral. She brought her hands up, the fingers clawlike.
He moved in, pinning her to the trash bags, his massive hairy hand closed around her throat.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said low in his throat. As he squeezed, she clawed at him, raking long furrows of skin from his hands and wrists. He squeezed until she ceased to struggle against her bed of black plastic bags.
________
Robbi jerked awake in the darkness. She was sitting upright in the hospital bed, gulping for air. Icy sweat stung her eyes and she rubbed them. Moaning now, she rocked back and forth.
The nightmare faded rapidly, but the ominous vision closed around her with suffocating clarity. The large man, the woman, the trash bags. What did it mean?
Robbi clutched the sheet, brought it to her stinging eyes. She wiped one eye, then the other. Though barely visible in the dim light of the hospital room, she realized she was staring at a white sheet held in long, tapered fingers.
Her own fingers.
She opened her eyes wide, straining to see. A pale moon glow reflected off a chrome paper towel dispenser across the room. The balloons in the window—four of them—shifted softly, catching the light. The large clock on the wall read 3:32.
Roberta sucked in a deep breath.
She could see again.
CHAPTER NINE
Margaret Winston opened her eyes and stared into a glaring light. She quickly closed them. Taking a few moments to get her bearings, she opened her eyes again, more slowly. A bare bulb hung from the ceiling in the middle of the tiny room. Where the hell was she? How had she gotten here?
As she looked around, she began to recall things she didn’t want to recall. The bar. The big man with the black eyes. Oh, God, no.
Her hand went to her throat. It felt tender both inside and out. It all came back to her in a rush. He had jumped her outside the bar, choked her into unconsciousness then brought her to this place.
Mortal Crimes 1 Page 72