Garden of Evil

by Edna Buchanan

  She flipped the top off a can of premixed formula and paused. “I know it’s hard on Mom, especially holidays and stuff, but you can see how awkward it would be to have them all in the same room.”

  “Isn’t it uncanny how much Moira resembles your mom?” I perched on a kitchen stool and watched her pour the contents of the can into a disposable plastic baby bottle and screw on the nipple top.

  “You noticed.” She laughed. “I keep telling Mom it’s a compliment that he was attracted to someone just like her.”

  “I’m sure she’d have felt more complimented if he had kept the original.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You know how it is with some men. They get to a certain age…” She shrugged. “Dad’s really a nice guy. You’d like him.”

  We sat across from each other at the little breakfast bar.

  “I admit,” she said softly, the plastic bottle in her hands, “I’ve been so busy with the baby and everything that maybe I’ve neglected her some. But that’s not a news story; there’s no mystery stalker. If you wrote something, it would just embarrass everybody. When things slow down a little, I’ll spend more time with her, take the baby to see her more often. I mean, she can’t come here. Moira could pop in the door at any minute.”

  My face must have betrayed my thoughts.

  “Look,” she said earnestly. “I’m happy now. My own family has to come first, and when I’m happy, they’re happy. When Moira—when this whole divorce thing came up, Mom was bummed. She used to cry a lot. It was such a downer, I couldn’t handle it.”

  She excused herself to take the bottle in to the baby, then rejoined me.

  “It’s no crime to want to be happy. Mom had her time. She will again. She has to build a new life for herself. She’s overdramatizing, wanting our attention, especially Dad’s. She won’t—can’t—let go. Don’t you see? Psychology One-oh-one. She has to snap out of it. Nobody can do it for her. Not me, not you. She’s a good woman, a nice woman, I love her, and I’m sure Dad still does in his own way—nobody wants to hurt her.” She consulted her Rolex. Had there been a fire sale? I felt suddenly aware of my own wristwatch, a Heinz novelty model, the second hand a tiny dill pickle.

  “You’ll have to excuse me,” Jamie said. “Moira and I are going to Bal Harbour. Saks is having a sale.”

  The cloud-colored Jag rolled up the driveway as I left.

  Althea needed time, attention, and moral support. That’s what family, friends, and shrinks are for. That’s not what I am paid to do.

  Lottie had reappeared in the newsroom, svelte and radiant. Love always made her lose weight. She claimed she hadn’t slept.

  “It was nothing but sex, sex, sex,” she drawled, drawing instant attention from Ryan, at his desk behind me, and Howie Janowitz, who was passing by. “Coral sex.”

  “Coral,” I informed them, speaking succinctly. Both looked disappointed.

  Coral sex occurs only a few nights a year, when the moon is full and the tides, temperatures, and other conditions just right. They had gone diving to watch elkhorn and star coral spawn.

  “You shoulda come with us, Britt. Underwater blizzards, millions and millions of teeny tiny pinkish balls—sperm and eggs connecting in the moonlight. Eventually they settle down and build a reef.”

  “Sounds like you and Tex are a hot item,” I said.

  “Nothing but sugar and honey so far,” she said. “Way I figure, it’s probably jist about time for the bottom to drop out. Happens every time.” She sighed. “When he’s good, he’s so-o-o good. Then he gets involved in some wild adventure or decides to save the world and it’s time to run for the high timber.”

  “Maybe he’ll surprise you.”

  She shook her head. “When he was twelve he got his picture in the paper for being the youngest student body president ever elected at our school. Same week he got expelled for flying a glider he built off the roof. That’s how it’s always been, like he can’t stand success.”

  Clucking sympathetically, I thought of McDonald, who would never disappoint me.

  I bought thick steaks at Epicure on the way home and scrubbed my apartment to a shine. I gave Bitsy a bath, brushed Billy Boots, trimmed his claws, and then did my own nails. Everything had to be perfect.

  He called late. I whispered sleepily that champagne on ice awaited his arrival. “One more day,” I said.

  “We need to talk about that.”

  “Yes-s-s,” I purred.

  “Something really great has happened. I’ve been invited to take part in an FBI/State Department symposium on terrorism. I talked to the chief today and he was really enthusiastic, heartened by the offer. The more cooperation we can foster with these guys, the better off we are.”

  “When is it?” Was rain about to fall on my parade?

  “Starts tomorrow,” he said briskly.

  “How long?” I held my breath.

  “I’ll be up here another week.”

  “A whole week?”

  “It’s an excellent opportunity to work with these guys, good for the city and good for me personally. Because of the department’s past troubles, the FBI hasn’t trusted us or wanted to work with us. You know how it’s been. And you know how important mutual cooperation is on some of those extraditions we’ve been trying to make from south of the border.”

  His spiel had begun to sound like an official presentation.

  “But we were—”

  “A chance like this doesn’t come often.”

  “And me you can see anytime, is that it?”

  “Believe me, I’m as disappointed as you are.”

  When did all this come about? His invitation to participate didn’t arrive at midnight. Why didn’t he tell me before I scrubbed the apartment, washed the dog, bought the champagne, manicured my nails, requested comp time, and practically picked out a silver pattern? He prefers terrorism to me, I thought furiously. I’ll show him terrorism.

  “The best things are worth waiting for, babe,” he said. “We’ve got the rest of our lives.”

  He got me with that one.

  I stared at the ceiling later, disappointed and surprised at my own sweet understanding. That is how good police wives are, I told myself. Wait and wonder, swallow disappointment and worry, smile bravely, bear up and behave like a trouper. Did they actually find fulfillment in that?

  In the morning I called to ask my mother to dinner. She’d been on my mind since I visited Althea. Also, I didn’t want to dine alone on the night McDonald and I should have been together. And, most importantly, someone had to see and appreciate my spotlessly clean apartment.

  “Sweetheart! I’ve been thinking about you,” she said cheerfully. “Kendall McDonald isn’t back in town yet, is he? What will you be wearing when he arrives? Make it memorable, something he’ll always remember you in.”

  I did not mention my new nightgown. “I thought, maybe my navy blue”

  “No, no, no! Something glamorous, unforgettable, in some lighter shade of blue. A bias cut, with a draped neckline, a romantic little soft jersey dress that skims the body. Something like mat would be absolutely darling on you, with your figure.”

  “He’s delayed,” I said glumly. “Won’t be back for another week. Want to have dinner here tonight? I’ll cook.”

  “You darling, but I have to settle for a rain check. Roger is coming in from New York, and we have plans. I wish you’d called sooner.”

  “You didn’t return my last call,” I complained. When did our relationship take this 180-degree turn? I wondered. Her chronic complaint was always that I didn’t call or see her enough. These days, with her high-fashion job and burgeoning social calendar, I had to make an appointment.

  “Who the heck is Roger?” I grumped.

  “You remember, I told you about him, recently retired, relocating to Aventura.”

  “I thought you were seeing that fellow from the cosmetics firm.”

  “Warren,” she chirped. “We’re doing brunch on Sunday.”
r />   “Well,” I said. “Sounds like you’re all booked up.”

  “What’s wrong?” She said it so spontaneously it startled me. “I’ll cancel on Roger if you need me, Britt.”

  “No. Don’t be silly. I’m really glad one of us has a life. Have fun.”

  “I saw that dreadful story about the baby in the parked car. Everyone was talking about it.” She clucked. “If you could just write something pleasant for a change, I’m sure you’d feel much better about yourself.”

  That was the mother I remembered. Somehow I felt better. For a moment there, I thought she’d gone sensitive and caring on me.

  My mom had a date. Everybody I knew had happily paired off. That I was not totally alone in my misery and frustration was small comfort.

  I called a kindred spirit from the office. Althea sounded relieved. “I was so worried when you didn’t return my calls.”

  Her words irritated me, probably because I woke up irritated. The state map with the red pushpins hung over my shoulder, a dark presence behind me, casting an imaginary shadow over my desk.

  “Look, Althea. I really think I’ve gone as far as I can go with this. I don’t think you’re in any danger, anymore than any of us on any given day.”

  “But Britt, surely you’re not—”

  “Hear me out, please. You got a raw deal in a lotta ways, but look at the big picture. You are still a helluva lot better off than ninety percent of the people on the planet, and certainly better off than most people I write about every day.”

  “You don’t believe me either.”

  The raw pain in her voice made me feel like shit.

  “Althea, murder is a big deal.” I glanced up at the map as if for confirmation. “People go to prison forever for murder, or to the electric chair. A lot of times we hear the reason for a homicide and shake our heads because it sounds so stupid and trivial, but trivial or not, most killers have some sort of motive. Nobody has a motive to kill you—unless there’s something you’re not telling me.”

  “No, there’s nothing, that’s what makes this—” Her voice broke.

  “You see? Sometimes terrible things happen to us, a death, divorce, illness, and when more bad things follow we tend to take it personally and maybe get a little paranoid. What you need to remember is that life is cyclical, tides turn, good times come back again, sometimes bigger and better than ever, if you just hang in for the long haul.”

  “If you survive,” she whispered hopelessly.

  “You’re smart, healthy, attractive. You’ll be fine,” I enthused, with all the gusto I could muster.

  My cheerleading did not produce the desired effect. She said nothing.

  “I met your daughter, Jamie. A lovely young woman, all wrapped up in being a wife and a new mother right now, but she loves you and cares about you.”

  “You saw the baby?” she asked eagerly.

  “No, I didn’t, but if she looks like the rest of the women in the family, she must be gorgeous.”

  “She is. Thank you for trying to help. I’m sorry I troubled you.”

  “No trouble. Just take care, don’t allow yourself to feel or look vulnerable. Go on out there, chin up, determined to break this bad cycle. Maybe you should see somebody, a counselor or a therapist, just to talk things out.”

  “I wish it were that easy. Goodbye.”

  The mention of a therapist motivated me. I made a call, then drove downtown, stopping to pick up half a dozen jelly donuts on the way.

  Dr. Rose Schlatter met me at her office door. She wore her usual dangly earrings and low-cut blouse over a tailored skirt. With her bright blue eyeshadow and thick smeary lipstick, she looks more like a faded stripper or aging cocktail waitress than a well-known forensic psychiatrist who specializes in sex offenders. Her eager eyes settled immediately on my offering.

  She took the Dunkin Donuts box, lifted the lid as though expecting pearls, and reacted as though they were diamonds. “Jelly!” she exclaimed, in her breathy Marilyn Monroe voice. She smiled. “You remembered.”

  We poured coffee from a pot in a tiny cubicle near the unmanned reception desk and carried the cups into her office.

  “Where’s your secretary?” I asked.

  “I sent him out on an errand that will take some time.” She winked, displaying her eyeshadow, took the first bite, and crooned softly with pleasure.

  I must have looked puzzled.

  “He watches me like a hawk,” Dr. Schlatter explained, patting powdered sugar from her lips with one of the pink-and-white paper napkins. “Saves me from myself. He’s tough as nails. Wouldn’t let me near these things. Wouldn’t allow them in the office.”

  “Why not get a new secretary?” I said.

  The mascaraed eyes above the rapidly diminishing jelly donut widened. “But that’s part of his job description,” she said, chewing. “I assigned him to stop me. It’s a question of health. I have to lose weight because of my high blood pressure.”

  “Oh, okay.” Now I felt guilty.

  She held on to the donut box while pushing aside a thick folder.

  “Just refreshing my memory on an old case coming up again soon. You may remember, Siegfried Olson.”

  “The shoemaker. If his plumber hadn’t been nosy, they might never have discovered the body parts in his septic tank.”

  “Yes, he had such a fascination with victims’ shoes that he sometimes left the feet in them. You have a good memory.” Nodding in approval, she sank her teeth into another donut.

  “I’d like to forget him. He still writes to me.”

  “Jail mail.” She sighed. “I guess you would get it too. It makes sense.”

  “All the time.”

  “Ever answer?” she asked.

  “Never,” I said. “Despite our publisher’s policy. You?”

  Coyly she sucked the powdered sugar off her lower lip. “Depends a lot on the case.”

  “Why is Siegfried coming up?”

  “Doctors at the state hospital say he’s competent now and quite harmless, as long as he remains on his medication. Since he was found not guilty by reason of insanity, he’s coming up for release.”

  “Oh, swell. And who will insist that he take his medication if he’s released?”

  “Not if.” She swallowed, patted her lips again, and smiled. “When. But I’m sure you’re not here to discuss him. What’s on your mind today, Britt?”

  Her eyes lit up when I mentioned the Kiss-Me Killer. “I’ve been following the case in the news media. Absolutely fascinating. Now she is someone I’d certainly like to meet.”

  “What do you think makes her tick? She may be coming this way. She could already be here, for all we know.”

  “Yes,” Dr. Schlatter said, nodding slowly. “A glittery big city like Miami, widely known for sex, drugs, alcohol, and violence, would attract her. Hunters like to go where the game is—the wild life, so to speak. As for what makes her tick, that’s more difficult to answer. Historical records on female serial killers go back for centuries, but their murders were most often poisoning or baby killing.

  “Most modern serial killers of the female persuasion have been health care workers or companions to the elderly, not women out trolling the highways and city streets for victims like the men do. Remember the woman in South Miami who took in elderly boarders, buried them in her backyard, and continued collecting their Social Security checks?”

  I nodded.

  “And the teenage baby-sitter who smothered half a dozen or so infants—all attributed to SIDS—before somebody finally took note that she was present every time? Others have been the more passive partners in couples that kill for cash or thrills. And then there are the Black Widows—like Florida’s own Rita Lee Hutton.”

  “I remember reading old stories about her.”

  “Oh, she was a piece of work, that one.” She absently bit into a fresh donut, the red jelly oozing out onto her fingers and crimson fingernails. “Charming and quite likable, actually, the girl next
door. I got to spend some time with her. Poisoned her father, a husband, a fiancé, a son, and, I believe, a couple of neighbors, one of them a nosy retired cop. Total lack of conscience, no guilt, no remorse. Managed to justify everything until the day she died. She might have been capable of something like this, except in those days it just wasn’t done. A woman’s choice of weapons was most often poison.”

  “What about this one?” I asked impatiently, as she licked her fingers.

  She paused, eyes resting fondly on the cardboard donut box.

  “There’s so much we don’t know. So little research has been done. Most serial killers are white men in their twenties and thirties. We know their numbers are proliferating and that most of their victims are white women. But this is something new. Do the backgrounds and psychological afflictions common to male serial killers apply equally to females with similar violent patterns?” She shrugged. “She’s fascinating.”

  “But the MO, what we know so far, what does that tell you? Apparently she’s attractive.”

  “Of course, so many are.” She smiled. “Rarely do they resemble monsters, which is what they are, of course. That’s how they manage to get away with it long enough to become serial killers.”

  She whisked crumbs from her sleeve and leaned back in her chair.

  “Probably intelligent in a street-smart way, even though she didn’t do particularly well in school. Suffers from an inability to relate sexually to others in a normal way. Likes the publicity. Most likely follows her own exploits in the press. May even save news clippings, keep a diary; perhaps she even risks revisiting murder scenes, though this one certainly seems to stay on the move.

  “One common ritual in serial murder is the taking of keepsakes—either as trophies, to commemorate a successful hunt, or souvenirs, used later to fuel masturbatory fantasies. Would this apply equally to a female? I don’t know.