Head To Head

by Linda Ladd

  “You’re a very angry lady, aren’t you? It’d be interesting to find out why.”

  “Sorry. I don’t believe in paying a thousand dollars to lie around on a couch and tell somebody my secrets. Seems like a stupid thing to do.” I smiled ingratiatingly. “And besides, what I am doesn’t matter in this investigation, Doctor Black. It’s you we’re investigating.” For effect, I looked down at my notes. “Did Ms. Border act oddly or say anything out of the norm when you saw her that night?”

  “Actually, she did. Like I said, she was unhappy, and she’d been upset all week. I’d noticed how stressed out she was in our first session, but we’d been making progress. She was relaxed and happy for a day or two; then all of a sudden, she reverted back to the way she was when she got here.”

  “What was she upset about?”

  “I’m afraid that is privileged information, Detective.”

  We stared at each other, assessing, probing, panting. He’s enjoying this, I realized, but the trouble is, I am, too. Not good. Not smart. I found myself wanting to best him, put him down. How unprofessional was that? I shrugged out of that coat and said, “Did she mention anyone, having a fight with a boyfriend, somebody harassing her, anything like that?”

  “Since it has already been reported in the press, I can say that she’s having a love affair with an actor. She said he’d called earlier that evening, and she’d hung up on him.”

  “Did she seem angry?”

  “Not particularly, but Sylvie is a good actress. I always keep that in mind when I treat actors.”

  “Was it usual for her to put on an act with as good a friend as you claim to be?”

  “We were good friends,” he said calmly. Casually, he crossed his legs, put his elbows on the chair’s armrests, and steepled his fingers. I had a feeling that was one of his favorite contemplative psychiatrist positions. He could probably daydream about buying more big toys doing that, and patients wouldn’t be the wiser. I also had a feeling I’d gotten the last spark of anger out of him that I was going to get. He went on, “When she didn’t want to talk about her problems, she’d hide behind facades. We all do that. Even you, I suspect.”

  I gave no reaction. So what if it was true?

  “You look familiar,” he said suddenly, and I tried not to react but with more difficulty.

  “I’ve seen you somewhere before; I’m sure of it. I thought so the first minute I saw you.”

  “Maybe I gave you a speeding ticket.”

  “I’d definitely remember being stopped by you, Detective.” His eyes were ravaging my person as he tried to remember. Our mutual friend, Mr. Sexual Awareness, flexed his muscles this way and that, back in our faces big time. “We crossed paths somewhere, trust me. I’ve got a knack for remembering faces.”

  I’d had enough of that subject. “You’re mistaken. We’ve never met. Can anybody vouch for the time you arrived home from Ms. Border’s bungalow on the night of the murder?”

  Black shook his head. “I never keep my personal staff past five o’clock unless something special is going on. Most of them have families to get home to, and I try to remember that. Do you have a husband and children to get home to, Detective Morgan?”

  “Did anyone see you walking home from Sylvie’s bungalow? Another guest, perhaps, or a room service waiter?”

  “Not that I am aware of.”

  “Do you know the whereabouts of your black Porsche at this moment?”

  For the first time, his surprise registered clearly. It seemed genuine. “I assumed it was still at Sylvie’s place.”

  I took advantage of his disconcertment. “How long have you known Ms. Border?”

  He hesitated and spoke so carefully that I knew he was hiding something. “I’ve been treating her for a couple of years, but I’ve known her for a long time. Since she was very young.”

  I sensed I was on to something at last, so I attached myself to the subject like an octopus sucker. “In what capacity, Doctor Black?”

  “She modeled some in New York, before she got her big break on the soaps. My ex-wife introduced us.”

  “Your ex-wife is the supermodel known as Jude. Is that correct, Doctor Black?”

  “You do your homework. Yes, she is, but we’ve been divorced for years.”

  I jotted that down. I’m good at jotting. I came at him from a different angle. “Was Ms. Border in love with you?”

  His arresting blue eyes reacted, but not enough for me to get a bead on the reason why. I really, truly hate interviewing psychiatrists. Actually, I hate psychiatrists period. They were trained to take any question or comment without reacting. They were dynamite on the witness stand, and Nicholas Black was better at it than most.

  “As I said before, I never become involved with patients. Never. I can’t state it more unequivocally than that.”

  “Not even emotionally?”

  “Like you, Detective, I’ve trained myself to remain unemotional.” He was studying me again, and I tried not to fidget. “Have you ever lived in New York, Detective?”

  Yeah, right, like I was going to start answering his questions. “What kind of person was Ms. Border?”

  “Basically, she was a good kid. She had some problems, including a drug habit that got her in trouble, but I was helping her get clean.”

  “Any other kinds of problems?”

  “Come now, Detective, you know as well as I do that I’m not going to tell you anything discussed in my confidential therapy sessions with Sylvie.”

  “Not even if it would help us find her killer?”

  “Perhaps, if I thought it could catch the animal who did this to her, and if I had permission from the family. But neither of those things is likely to happen.”

  “How did Sylvie seem to you that last night?”

  “I told you. She was sad and upset. I think she was depressed about her boyfriend.”

  “You mean Gil Serna.”

  “You’re very good, Detective. I’m impressed.”

  “I try. Was it Gil Serna who called that night and upset her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “He thought she was down here to have a fling with me.”

  “But that was groundless, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “What time did you say you arrived at her bungalow?”

  Black smiled, as if well aware I was probing his story for inconsistencies. “Sometime between nine and ten.”

  “How long did you stay?”

  “Thirty minutes to an hour.”

  “Was Sylvie serious about Gil?”

  “Enough so that Sylvie was going to buy him a Porsche for his birthday. That’s another reason she wanted to borrow mine. To test-drive it.”

  “You didn’t mention that reason a minute ago.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “That’s an expensive car. From what you’ve said, the two of them didn’t sound happy enough together for her to spend that kind of money on him.”

  “Everyone is different in the way they choose to show their love for another.”

  “What is Gil Serna like?”

  “He’s insanely jealous. She kept trying to make him feel secure in her love but without much luck.”

  “Insanely? Is that your professional opinion? Do you think Gil Serna is capable of murder?”

  “You know what they say. Everybody’s capable of murder under the right circumstances. I’m sure you’ve encountered that kind of person yourself, Detective.”

  The remark hit too close to home, and I fought back rising memories and the pain they brought with them.

  Black noticed that, too. He frowned slightly and narrowed his eyes. “If Serna is the one, Detective Morgan, I hope you can prove it.”

  “Rest assured, Doctor,” I said.

  “You’re very confident, aren’t you? And now that I’ve met you, somehow I think you will solve this case. You’ve got steel in your eyes. Were you born around here?”

&n
bsp; “If you don’t mind, sir, I prefer to ask the questions.”

  “Fine.”

  “Did you say Ms. Border was making progress under your care?”

  “Yes. She was feeling much better. We’d made some important breakthroughs. She was rethinking how she felt about things.”

  “She had a tendency to blame herself for her problems?”

  “Sometimes, especially in romantic situations. She was insecure.”

  “Yet she seemed to have it all—looks, money, fame.”

  “Sometimes people hide their misery behind those kinds of facades. It’s called self-preservation.”

  Something about the way he looked at me made me wonder if I should slap on some more bricks and mortar to my own facade.

  “Has the cause of death been determined?” he asked suddenly. This time I could see his pain quite clearly. He had cared about Sylvie Border, and a hunch told me there was more to their relationship than what he intimated.

  “Not officially. Why do you ask?”

  “Miki described how she was found. It cuts me to think she suffered long.”

  My cell phone began to play the “Mexican Hat Dance” song, and I pulled it off my belt.

  Bud said, “It’s me, and we got a hit on the surveillance tapes. A busboy showed up at Sylvie’s place around ten-thirty, went in the gate, and didn’t come out. Guess who has a rape record and didn’t show up for work today? Our old friend Troy Inman. Meet me at the station, and we’ll go get him.”

  “I’ll be there in ten.”

  Nicholas Black watched me stand up and replace my phone. “Something important has come up, I presume?”

  “Doctor Black, I’d like to continue this later, if you’ll grant me the time.”

  He stood and retrieved a white linen business card from a gold desk holder. He took a pen and scribbled something on the back of it. “This is my private cell phone number. You can reach me on it at any time. I’ll do anything I can to help you find out who did this.”

  I nodded, glad to hear it, and took his card, because I wasn’t done with him yet, not by a long shot.

  8

  “Where the hell is this place?” Bud asked me twenty minutes after I’d left Nicholas Black’s resort palace. We avoided maybe a million potholes as we jounced down a gravel road about ten miles outside the town of Camdenton.

  “Inman lives about half a mile down this road in a trailer court. I ran him in on a domestic last January right after the Super Bowl. He beat up his wife when the Rams lost in the last three minutes of the game.”

  Soon the King Camelot Court loomed up in all its glory. The regal name was lost on the place. Most of the trailers were the small travel kind, shabby, rusted, and dirty. I had a feeling that rent was paid with first-of-the-month welfare checks.

  Resident children had a playground in a weed-choked field in the middle of the trailers. The teeter-totters teetered and tottered on their last legs. The slide looked lethal. The whole place looked dangerous. Three little girls about seven sat in the dirt under a rusty swing set sans swings. One was wearing a red two-piece bathing suit, one had on blue baby-doll pajamas, and one had on dirty white shorts and no shirt. It was a pathetic place to raise kids. Unfortunately, I’d seen other places just like it or even worse in my line of work.

  “Jeez, what a dump,” Bud said.

  “Over there, under the oak tree. The silver one.”

  A man wearing jean shorts and a red T-shirt that said SCREW YOU, LADY, PLEASE? saw me looking and ducked back inside his house. “What’d you bet crank rocks and quarter bags are hitting the toilets all over this place?”

  Bud said, “Yeah, we oughta cruise through here once a week. Drug control without leavin’ the car.”

  We pulled up near the nasty little trailer. “Tell me, Morgan, how’s our boy finance a snazzy trailer like this on busboy’s pay?”

  “It’s better than the rest of them. His wife’s a cocktail waitress at the Blue Pelican Country Club. She makes good tips.”

  “Yeah? She oughta take them and get the hell outta here.”

  By the looks of the front yard, it appeared that Inman tossed all his garbage and beer bottles out the window instead of paying for trash service. I searched dingy windows for signs of life.

  “Park down behind those bushes, and let’s walk up. It’d be better if he didn’t see us coming, especially if he’s been hitting the booze.”

  I climbed out, unsnapped my shoulder holster, just in case. Inman was a big, mean guy with a temper—a real charmer. He messed with me last time, and I’d busted my hand breaking his nose. I listened. Everything was quiet except for the voices of the little girls under the torn-up swings. They were playing red rover. A little hard to do with just the three. Maybe they had imaginary friends.

  Bud came up beside me and spoke in a low voice. “You ready?”

  “You take the back, in case he runs. I’ll take the front.”

  “Listen, Claire, don’t go in alone if there’s trouble. Wait for me.” Bud looked at me as if he expected me to agree to that. Bud thought I took chances.

  I said, “No sign of his truck. Maybe he’s not here.”

  Bud slipped around behind some thick forsythia bushes. I took a deep breath and sidestepped garbage and other junk all the way to the front door. The soles of my sneakers crunched on hundreds of rotten acorn shells. I hoped all the beer bottles scattered around didn’t bode ill for this takedown. Everything seemed unnaturally quiet, as if nature were holding its breath to see if we could surprise Inman. Even the birds had shut their beaks, probably irked by Bud’s less than stealthy trek around back. The sixth sense that served me well quivered, and I drew my Glock and held it down alongside my right thigh. I edged up on the little porch, keeping my body to one side of the door.

  “Open up, sheriff’s department.”

  I hit the aluminum screen door with a doubled fist. It rattled like crazy but brought nothing alive inside. I tightened my grip on my weapon. “If you’re in there, Inman, open up. Don’t make this hard on yourself.”

  No answer. Cautiously, I opened the screen door and found the scarred door ajar. I pushed it open with my toe. The smell of cigarette smoke and stale body odor hit me in the face. Inch by ugly inch, Inman’s home materialized. A ragged, overturned brown recliner. Broken dishes scattered around on the filthy green shag carpet. A woman lying on her back, arms outflung, blood all over her face. A broken Budweiser bottle lay beside her head.

  I checked out behind the door, eased in with my back flat against the wall. Gun ready, nerves on edge, I surveyed the place. Kitchen empty and in a shambles. The blood spatter visible on greasy white cabinets looked like three scarlet carnations overlapping each other. He must’ve hit her in the kitchen, then dragged her into the living room.

  I tried to see if the woman was breathing as I moved toward her. Then Inman came at me out of the hallway so fast that I couldn’t evade him. I ducked right, but he got a hard jab on my right cheekbone, which sent me sprawling. I hit the wall hard and slid down but managed to keep my grip on the gun. A six-foot-six giant of a man, Inman jumped me again, grabbed my gun hand, and slammed me back against the wall.

  “You ain’t puttin’ me in jail again, bitch.” His breath smelled fetid from booze and cigarettes and something else I didn’t want to identify. He wrenched my wrist and squeezed until the Glock dropped from numb fingers.

  I clawed at his hands as he jerked my feet off the floor, but I thrust my knee up between his legs as hard as I could. He wheezed and grunted in agony and let go. I stomped his instep and rammed my fist into his Adam’s apple. I felt it give under my blow, and he went down hard, gurgling and holding his throat. Bud barreled in the back door and jumped him, flipping him over, and kept a knee on his back while he pulled his arms behind him and clamped on the cuffs.

  “Goddamn it, Claire, I told you not to go in without me. Are you all right?”

  He was looking at my face, and I touched my right eye and foun
d it puffy and painful. There was blood on my fingers, but not much.

  “The bastard blindsided me,” I said, going down on one knee beside the woman. It was Inman’s wife, and her breathing was shallow, the cut on top of her head deep and oozing blood. She had a pulse, but it wasn’t much of one. I grabbed a dish towel off the counter and pressed it down on the wound.

  Bud knelt beside me. “You sure you’re okay, Claire?”

  “Yeah, but she’s not doing so hot.”

  “She still alive?” Bud stood up, jerked out his phone, and dialed for an ambulance.

  “Yeah, but she’s lost a lot of blood. Let’s get that piece of shit out of here so the EMTs can work on her.”

  9

  Bud and I were summoned to Sheriff Charles Ramsay’s office at eight o’clock the next morning. Charlie was not in a good mood.

  “What the fuck happened to you?” he asked me in his gentle way.

  “I was injured on a domestic call last night. It’s nothing. They put a Band-Aid on it.”

  “It looks like you were hit by a dadgum freight train.” Charlie was prone to cursing. He was versed in every profanity known to mankind but drew the line at uttering the Lord’s name in vain. After all, he was a Southern Baptist. So he said weird things instead, like dadgum and goldurn. He eyed my blackening eye and butterfly bandage as if personally offended.

  “He got the jump on me for a minute, but I was able to take control of the situation.”

  “Where the hell were you, Davis? Out taking a piss somewhere?”

  “No, sir. I helped apprehend the perp when I heard him attacking Morgan.”

  “Well, that’s fucking good of you.”

  “I happened upon the perpetrator before Bud was in place,” I said.

  “You just happened on him, did you? Seems to me I warned you on several occasions about going in alone, Detective. Don’t make me call you on it again, or your ass is off the force. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Charlie grimaced and jerked open his top drawer. He took out a bottle of Pepto-Bismol and chugged it like a root beer. I shifted in my chair, grossed out, until he wiped the pink stuff off his upper lip with the back of his hand. “Okay, now tell me what the hell’s going on out at Cedar Bend.”