Murray gulped—he hadn’t expected me to call his bluff. He followed me perforce, asking me questions all the way down the hall. When the elevator came we climbed on together, followed by a lab tech wheeling a loaded cart. I waited until the doors were starting to close, then wriggled out past the cart. His protesting yelp followed me as the doors shut.
Ellen Higgins, emerging from a patient’s room, stopped to thank me when I came back up the hall. “We’ve had reporters around here all night. Why, one man tried going into her room at three this morning. And when the night ward head, Lila Dantry, stopped him he had the nerve to pretend he was a friend of Mr. Messenger’s come to help out his daughter.”
“At three in the morning?” I felt a chill in my stomach. I couldn’t imagine a reporter doing that, but one of Fabian’s friends might, if Fabian sent him to harass Emily on his behalf.
“They should post a guard,” I said.
“That’s the family’s decision,” Higgins told me. “But I think we can protect her from journalists—they usually cooperate with hospital personnel.”
I didn’t like the idea of strange men dropping in on Emily. A hospital is too easy a place to get in and out of. I thought I might call the Streeter brothers, some friends of mine with a bodyguard service, when I got back to my room.
When the nurse realized I was the person who had helped rescue the children yesterday, she took me over to see Joshua and Nathan—Sam and Miriam, the two Hawkings children, were still in intensive care. The two Messengers still had IV’s in their arms for fluids, but normal color had returned to their faces. Joshua was studiously playing with some kind of handheld game, ignoring me, Ellen Higgins, and the nurse adjusting his IV, but Nathan was restless. The ward nurse said he was crying for his sister.
Back in the hall Higgins debated letting me visit Emily. “She’s so withdrawn, we were worried initially that she might have sustained some brain damage, but the EEG looks normal.”
I nodded. “She retreats behind a mask that looks almost retarded when she feels threatened. Have the cops been to see her?”
“They told me a very nice woman officer tried talking to Emily about her mother’s death, but she became so agitated, we had to ask the officer to leave. What do the police think she knows about her mother?”
I shook my head. “They don’t confide in me. They may think she knows something about the murder weapon.”
“Oh.” Higgins eyes grew round. “We had a psychiatric resident in because we wanted to make sure she hadn’t been too traumatized by her time in the tunnel. When he asked her her name she said she didn’t have one, that she was a mouse between two cats. She wouldn’t say anything else. He thinks maybe she’s had a psychotic breakdown.”
“She could just be too angry to want to talk to any more adults at this point,” I suggested. “When she ran away from home last week she was on her way to see me. She may trust me more than a strange man.”
Higgins compromised by trying to page Dr. Morrison to ask her permission. When the pediatrician hadn’t answered after five minutes, Higgins decided to let me into the room. Although most of the children were in rooms with four or even six beds, Emily had been put by herself, Higgins explained, after her hysterical outcry against Fabian. Dr. Morrison, the pediatrician, had worried about the effect on other sick children if Emily had further outbursts.
When I came into the room Emily was lying with her eyes closed, but the tension in her neck and arms made me believe she was awake. Seven days underneath Chicago had leached the roundness from her arms and face. An IV was stuck into one thin wrist. Her frizzy hair lay bunched on the pillow like a badly wrung dish mop.
I pulled up a chair next to the bed. “It’s Vic Warshawski, Emily. You were looking for me the day you ran away from home, but your dad wouldn’t let the school call me. I’m sorry. Sorry you couldn’t find me, and sorry you’ve had such a terrible time of it.”
The muscles in her jaw moved, but she gave no other sign of having heard me.
“I hear you told the psychiatrist you didn’t have a name, that you were the mouse between two cats. That kind of statement gets doctors all excited—they start imagining the papers they can write about you in medical journals. Maybe you should go back to being Emily while you’re here so they don’t exploit you.”
At that she gave a snort that was half giggle, half sob. She didn’t open her eyes to look at me, but spoke in a tight, defiant voice.
“I’m not Emily. I am a mouse between two cats.”
I licked my lips as I tried to think of how to talk to her. “I read your poem about the mouse. You write in a very powerful way—it’s a gift that you should nurture. But the poem also sounds as though you were tormented by your parents. When did you write it? After the dinner party your dad gave for Manfred Yeo? He treated you in a very mean way that night. You know I thought so at the time.”
I waited a long few minutes to see if she would speak further, but she remained silent, her body taut, the tendons standing out on her neck and arms like strings that would snap if pulled any further. I felt the back of my own neck tense up in response. The tension reminded me to keep my voice calm. I shut my eyes, trying to conjure up the events that ultimately drove Emily underground.
“You wrote the poem after the dinner party. After I saw you, while Fabian and Deirdre were in their bedroom fighting. It must have seemed as though they were fighting over you, you poor little mouse.”
She shuddered along the length of her body but still didn’t speak. I could feel the intensity with which she was listening. If I could work out what happened, work it out right, she might trust me enough to speak to me.
When I looked back at the house as I drove away that night I’d seen a light turn on in a side room. I’d thought at the time that Emily might have gotten up to do something. The party had been on Wednesday. It was Friday when Deirdre died, but something about her murder had made Emily want to bring the poem to Alice Cottingham, to use it as a cry for help. I pinched my nose, as if that would help focus my imagination.
“Your mother left a note saying that she was going out, and that you were to fix leftover salmon since the housekeeper had the night off.” That much was true, or at least that much Fabian had said—the police had never actually seen Deirdre’s note.
“She said in the note that she was going to my office. Your father blew up at the idea of her going off without getting his permission and tore up the note.”
That part I was making up, but it had to be true, at least the business about Deirdre informing them where she was heading. I didn’t know what had become of the note, but Fabian or Emily or both of them had to have gone down to the Pulteney: how else had the bat reappeared in the Messenger house? I couldn’t ask Emily—she wouldn’t answer a direct question right now.
She started to shiver. One chance to get things right—it was like crossing the Grand Canyon on a tightrope. Heads, Emily went down to the Pulteney alone. Tails, Fabian went down to the Pulteney, killed Deirdre, and planted the bat in his daughter’s room. Surely not even Fabian was that demented. I took a deep breath.
“You wanted your mother. Even though she was one of the cats who tormented you, she was also the only person who might protect you from your father. So you went downtown to find her. And she was dead. When you saw the baseball bat you recognized it—it was your dad’s signed Nellie Fox that stood in your front hallway. You were afraid he had killed your mother. You wanted to protect him, so you took the bat home and hid it in your bedroom.”
Her chest heaved with dry sobs, and then suddenly, on a gulped whisper I could barely hear, she said, “I saw him.”
I longed to put a hand on her but didn’t know what that would mean to her in her present state, so I knelt down with my head near hers. “Whom did you see?”
“My—my ... Fabian. He was there in—in your office.” She was gasping with the effort not to cry. “I thought he was home in bed. I didn’t know—know how he beat me down
town. I thought ... I could ... escape from him. Now I never will.”
“Emily, when you took Joshua and Nathan last Monday you came down to my office building again looking for me. You knew I would help you out then. And you were right. I would, and I will. If you need to escape from your father I can help make that happen for you.” I hoped my voice sounded authoritative. “But if we’re going to get you away from him, I need you to tell me as clearly as you can what you remember from that night.”
I looked up to see Ellen Higgins and two other people in medical coats—a woman my age and a younger man—standing in the doorway. They were anxiously watching the drama at the bed and looked ready to spring into the room. I had no idea how long they’d been standing there. I shook my head slightly, hoping they would stay away, and turned back to Emily.
She was gasping for air and heaving so badly that her back was arching with the strain. I fumbled on the table for water and a straw.
“Drink this,” I said brusquely.
She took the cup from me, but her hands were shaking so badly she spilled it on herself. She cried out in rage—with herself, or me, or the cup itself—and threw it across the room. At that she began to cry in earnest.
The medical trio surged into the room.
“I think you’d better leave now,” the strange woman said. “She needs to calm down.”
I stayed in the room, hoping Emily would feel I was keeping myself in connection with her. I thought Emily’s hurling of the cup was an expression of the helplessness she felt, compounded by spilling water on herself, and that it would be a mistake to treat her like a baby now. It would only make her feel more helpless. She was sobbing now into her hands.
I spoke to her directly, in a slow, loud voice. “Emily, you have to make a choice right now. There are four people in this room who want you to be well and happy. Do you want to go on talking to me now about the night your mother died? Or do you want me to leave so that you can get some more rest? Whatever you decide to do, all four of us will respect your decision. No one will be angry or feel that you did something we didn’t want you to do. But you must tell us what you want.”
The medical trio, who’d been advancing on me, stopped in the middle of my speech. They could hardly throw me out under the circumstances. Only Ellen Higgins went directly to Emily’s side, where she started wiping her face with tissues and pouring her a fresh cup of water. Ignoring the rest of us she put an arm around Emily and coaxed her to drink. Gradually Emily’s sobs subsided to a faint hiccup.
“Do you want to try to sleep now, honey?” Higgins asked.
Emily hugged her knees, rocking slightly. Finally she whispered, “I want to talk to Vic.”
“Are you sure that’s what you want to do?” the strange woman asked. “You know you don’t have to talk to anyone.”
“I’m not as stupid as that,” Emily screeched, starting to cry again. “You don’t have to keep repeating it.”
The man and woman gave me a strange glance, compounded of resentment and admiration, but they left the room. Ellen Higgins stayed on the bed holding Emily. I moved back to my chair.
“That Dr. Morrison?” I asked.
Higgins nodded. “With Michael Golding, the psych resident ... You want me to leave, too, honey?”
Emily shook her head and leaned against her. In a tiny voice, with a lot of pauses, she told us what happened the night Deirdre died.
46
A Night to Remember
Deirdre often went to meetings at Home Free or Arcadia House, but every Sunday she pinned a weekly schedule to the kitchen bulletin board so Fabian would know which nights she planned to be away. And she was careful not to be gone on Mrs. Sliwa’s nights off. Although Fabian often had evening meetings himself, he expected Deirdre or the housekeeper to take care of dinner on the nights he was home. Before the Friday of Deirdre’s murder Emily couldn’t remember another time when her mother had made an unscheduled departure like that.
“It got Daddy angry. He likes everything to be planned in advance,” she said in a soft, hiccupy voice.
“How did he show you he was angry?”
“He yelled a lot and got us all scared. Joshua hid in his room and wouldn’t come down to dinner and then he said that since Daddy was always telling us to be self-controlled he should learn to control himself. Daddy said I wasn’t managing him properly, that if Josh talked back I should make him mind. Then—then Joshua came down and we had dinner and I put him and Natie to bed. That part was okay. I usually read them their stories even if Mrs. Sliwa gives them their baths. Then I went to my room to do my homework.”
Here she started to cry again, silently, without moving, as though tears were air covering her with a glossy sheen. Finally I prodded her gently.
“When did you decide to go down to my office? When you finished your homework?”
She shook her head. “I got into bed and—and Daddy came into my room. He often does. To talk, you know. He likes to talk to me in the dark.”
“Does he like to touch you too?” Ellen Higgins asked quietly.
“No. Just to talk.” Lying against Ellen Higgins’s arms she stared ahead, looking at neither of us. “He says I’m the only one who understands him, that we need to be patient with Mom because—because of her drinking, and that I help him be patient with her.”
She broke off, remembering that Deirdre was dead now. “I mean, that we needed to be patient.”
“Is that all he talks to you about?” I asked after another long silence.
“Oh, he tells me about what’s going on at work, the people who are frustrating him on the job, how good people always suffer and their work goes unrewarded.” She was speaking in a monotone, quickly but so softly that I had to strain to hear her. “I know he needs my help but it’s kind of hard, too, hard to ... I don’t know, it’s just hard. I try not to go to bed until ... you know, he and Mom, but that night she wasn’t home, it got later and later, I couldn’t stay up. And he came in. He was still mad, he couldn’t stop talking about how awful ... Vic was.”
She looked at me for the first time, a timid glance to see if I might react violently to this criticism. I smiled in reassurance and she looked away again.
“What he thought—what he said—first you tried to corrupt me, and now Mom. How it was all Vic’s fault Josh was talking back to him, Mom was traipsing off to her—Vic’s—office. How none of us cared about his career, that he was slaving away to make a good life for us and all we wanted to do was humiliate him. And then he—he got really angry and started ... at first I didn’t know what he was doing ... you know ... he—he—”
She started to retch. I fumbled on the bedstand and found a tray. Ellen Higgins tucked it under Emily’s chin and helped her cough up bile. I went into the bathroom for a wet washcloth, which I handed to the nurse. My bones were aching with Emily’s torment. Ellen Higgins had tears glinting at the corners of her eyes as she gently cleaned Emily’s face.
“You don’t have to explain,” I said. “But you decided you needed Deirdre. Your mother.”
She nodded and gulped. “He—he told me what a bad girl I was and left my room. I got dressed and snuck out the back door and caught the bus downtown. I don’t know what time it was, probably midnight or something. It was horrible downtown. No one was on the street except one drunk man who tried to touch me. I ran away and found your office building. I—I looked it up on a map after you gave me your card. And I went upstairs to your office. I saw Tamar in the hall, only then I didn’t know that was her name. Only later she told me, when she helped me get into the tunnel. She said don’t go in there; and I said it’s my mother, I need to see her, so I opened the door. The light was on and I could see Mom lying on the desk.”
She gave a hysterical little giggle. “At first I thought it was just Mom drunk again and I got really mad. I started to shake her and yell at her, something like, ‘Wake up. Can’t you do anything for me, ever?’ Only then I saw—it was her head split open. I
still didn’t get it; I thought she’d passed out and hurt her head. And then suddenly the door opened. It was Tamar hissing at me to get out, to hide, someone was coming. By then I could see Mom was dead, her brains—” She had to stop again for a minute.
“I was too stupid to move. All I could do was stare at Tamar and then she disappeared and I heard footsteps, men’s footsteps, so I crawled under the desk. And I saw him come over to the desk. I thought, he’ll find me here, now he’ll really beat me up. I thought he’d come looking for me.”
“You thought it was your dad,” I prompted. “Are you sure? Did you see his face?”
“I couldn’t. I was under the desk.”
“His shoes? Did you recognize his shoes?” I persisted.
She fell silent. “I don’t know. I guess—who else could it be? What other man would be so mad that he’d hurt Mom like she was hurt?”
“What did he do? Could you tell?”
“I was scared if I moved he’d hear me. I held my breath and heard this clicking noise. First I didn’t understand. Then I thought he was doing something to the computer, it was that kind of sound. And then he left. I waited. I thought Tamar would come and maybe help me; like I said, I didn’t know it was her, but you know, the woman who warned me, maybe she would help me, but no one came. So finally I crawled out. I was so scared. The building made so many noises and then when I got outside I thought I saw him standing on the corner. I ran. All the way home from downtown, running and walking, and being so scared of him finding me outside I wasn’t even scared to be alone on the lakefront.”
“Was your dad home when you got there?”
“I didn’t want to find out,” she whispered. “Then he’d know for sure I’d seen—seen him and—everything. I pushed my desk in front of my door to—to barricade it and got into bed and just lay there until it got light and I heard Nathan trying to come and find me.
“And all day long Daddy acted like nothing weird had happened, like it was life as usual, yelling at me to get Joshua to drink his milk and not spoil him, where was Mom, like he never hurt her or—or anything. I didn’t say anything. He’s like that. He gets mad, he hits Mom or—or does something, then he acts like it never happened.”
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