A Guilty Mind

by K. L. Murphy

  He nodded again. His tongue felt too large in his mouth and he couldn’t speak.

  “One was missing. The same size and brand as the one used to kill Dr. Michael.”

  Mary Helen’s free hand came to her mouth, stifling a small cry.

  George’s stomach rolled, the familiar nausea back. “I didn’t know that.” The magnitude of this news, hearing it in front of his wife and lawyer, stunned him. “I don’t think I knew it was missing,” he said, almost to himself. The tape. The knife. The blackout. A wave of hopelessness washed over him. They were going to arrest him for a murder he didn’t believe he could have committed and certainly didn’t remember.

  “Captain, this is all terribly interesting, but it sounds circumstantial to me.” George looked at Larry with admiration and gratitude. “I’ll ask you again. Are you planning to arrest my client?”

  He wouldn’t let Larry or Mary Helen down. This wasn’t their fight. His fear ebbed and he squeezed his wife’s hand. He would meet his fate head-­on, whatever that fate might be.

  A knock on the door broke the tension. George recognized the tall blond detective. “It’s time,” the man said.

  Martin came to his feet. “If you’ll follow me.”

  “Why?” Larry held an arm in front of George and Mary Helen. “Where are we going?”

  The captain waved them on. “It won’t be long now. Things will be made clear in a few minutes.”

  The group followed the captain to a large interview room. Cancini stood in the back of the room. At the table, George saw a man and a woman. The lady sat with her head bowed, her hands clasped in front of her. The man stood with his hands on her shoulders. He looked at Cancini again. Why was he here? Who were these ­people? He followed Cancini’s gaze back to the man and woman. She raised her head. He sucked in his breath and stumbled. She looked older and sadder, but as beautiful as ever. “Sarah.”

  Chapter Forty-­Seven

  CONFUSION REIGNED. THE man with Sarah screamed for a doctor and then water. Larry demanded to know what was going on. George, wide-­eyed, wobbled on his feet and leaned against the wall. He mouthed her name again, but no sound came out. Someone rushed in with water just as she appeared to be coming around. The man with Sarah shielded her from view and bent close to her ear. Who was he? George took a step forward and then another. How could it be Sarah after all this time? How could she be alive? Hadn’t he been mourning her death for more than twenty years? He stopped in his tracks, a new thought coming to him. Maybe it wasn’t Sarah at all.

  The woman lifted her head and pushed the man away. George stepped closer. She came to her feet. Close now, no more than ten feet apart, the two of them stared at each other. Dumbfounded, George felt the years slip away. His heart fluttered and his palms sweat. Sarah, older and more sophisticated, but still her. He’d know her anywhere.

  “It’s you,” he said. “I can’t believe it.”

  “George.” She brushed a stray hair off her face. “It’s been a long time.”

  He shivered when she spoke, and he forgot about the others in the room. “I thought you were dead.”

  She half smiled. “I know. I’m sorry about that. It had to be that way.”

  His heart leaped again. A million thoughts and feelings flooded his mind, but none more than joy. He was so glad to see her alive, the embodiment of his greatest fantasy standing before him, not dead but alive. “What are you doing here?”

  She opened her mouth, then seemed to lose whatever courage she’d gathered up to that point. Tears filled her eyes and she shook her head.

  Cancini moved between them. “This woman you know as Sarah,” he said, “is Dr. Michael’s widow, Nora Michael.”

  “What?” Sarah didn’t move, didn’t deny the detective’s words. “What?” George swayed on his feet. Larry caught him by the arm and guided him to a chair.

  Sarah’s voice trembled and tears ran down her face. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know it was you. Oh my God, how could he not have told me?” She collapsed again.

  George watched the man pat her back and speak in her ear. His arm and shoulder throbbed, but he ignored the pain. She was alive. That alone was miraculous, the most wonderful thing he could imagine, but the rest George didn’t understand. Sarah was married to Dr. Michael? His therapist? Told her what? Seconds ticked by and no one said anything. Blood rushed to his head and he bent over. Dr. Michael had known. He’d listened to George pour his heart out and he’d known all along. Why did he let George suffer? It was sick!

  An anger bubbled up in him and his jaw hardened. Sarah hadn’t died. She’d lived and married. A new thought brought him to his feet and his head rotated toward his wife. She huddled against the wall near the door.

  “How could you not tell me? How could you let me think I’d killed her?” he screamed, oblivious to the eyes watching him. “I was your husband, for God’s sake! You knew how I’d suffered. You knew I couldn’t forget. And you never stopped reminding me, either, always bringing it up and how you always had to save me from myself. It was all a lie. Everything was such a lie!”

  “No.” Mascara trailed down her cheeks, “It wasn’t like that. It was for your own good and—­”

  “Stop lying!”

  She shrank away but didn’t back down. “I know you won’t believe me, but I was trying to save you from yourself. I loved you.” She took a shaky breath. “I thought I didn’t anymore, but I was wrong. I still love you.”

  He laughed a high-­pitched laugh, a tinny, crazy sound that died in his throat. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Wild-­eyed, he pointed at Mary Helen. “Did y’all hear that? My wife loves me! She let me think I could kill someone, let me spend my whole life hating myself, never let me forget what a loser I was. But guess what? She ruined my life because she loves me. Yes! She loves me!” His fists clenched and unclenched. Sweat dotted his forehead and he wanted to punch something—­anything—­but instead stood motionless, breathing in and out.

  “It’s true.” Sarah wiped her eyes and swallowed hard. “Mary Helen is telling the truth. She did love you.”

  George spun around to face her. “How . . . how can you defend her?”

  Sarah drew herself up to her full height. “Because it was my idea.”

  The words were enough. George’s fury faded. He fell back to his chair, shaking. A deathly silence filled the room. George, head in his hands, couldn’t look at either woman. Was she defending Mary Helen?

  Sarah’s voice wobbled. “I’d like to explain, but I wonder if I might have some more water first?”

  Cancini had a pitcher placed on the table.

  George considered walking out. What could she possible have to explain? It would only be more lies. How could they do it? And how could Mary Helen claim it was out of love? All these years, all the blame, all the time wasted.

  “You wouldn’t let me go, George. Not easily, anyway. It’s no excuse, I know, but that’s how it started.” Sarah blew her nose and drank another sip of water. Pale and tear-­streaked, her beautiful face looked ravaged and old. “Mary Helen came to see me a few days before I came to the boathouse. She wanted me to break up with you, begged me to let you go. I told her not to worry. I wasn’t stupid, George. Our worlds were too different. I couldn’t take your family or your future from you. You couldn’t see the hold they had on you, always complaining about your dad, how he wouldn’t leave you alone. But to me, it sounded like heaven. My parents were gone and even when they were alive, they didn’t care about my brother and me. But it was more than that.” She paused and glanced at Mary Helen. “I loved you and I knew you loved me, but it wasn’t enough. I knew if we’d stayed together, you would have ended up resenting me until you’d wonder what you saw in me in the first place. I didn’t think I could cut it in your world. Call me a coward if you want.” She stopped, her words ringing in the silence that followed.

 
“You thought you knew everything, but you were wrong.” His words sounded bitter to his ears and he took a breath. “I never would have resented you. I loved you too much. I had faith in us. It was you who didn’t.”

  She held his gaze. “Maybe. It doesn’t matter. I had made up my mind and Mary Helen promised to help me financially if I left town.”

  “What?” He jumped to his feet, his face hot. “You gave Sarah money to leave?”

  Mary Helen didn’t answer, but she didn’t have to. The slope of her shoulders and her plaintive expression told him it was true. His pulse raced. His wife had bribed his girlfriend to leave him. Disgust and long-­suppressed resentment hit him and he lunged at her. Cancini stepped in front of him, and the blond detective caught him from behind.

  Larry stepped in. “George. That’s enough. You have got to calm down.” The lawyer shot a look at Mary Helen, eyebrows raised. Pale, she nodded once. “Okay. Let’s figure this out.” They sat down together, George breathing hard.

  Cancini cleared his throat. “I think we all need to calm down a little.” When no one said anything, he went to Sarah. “Mrs. Michael, I think the best thing would be for you to explain to everyone what happened at the boathouse and why you let Mr. Vandenberg think you were dead all these years. A lot has happened since then and in light of your husband’s murder, I think you owe him that.”

  Her gaze shifted from the detective to George. “Yes, I guess you’re right.”

  Chapter Forty-­Eight

  “I THINK I was unconscious after I fell. I don’t know how long. My head hurt so badly when I woke up. There was blood on my face and in my hair.” Her voice was so low, they leaned forward to hear. “George, you were gone when I woke up. Only Mary Helen was still there. I told her I broke up with you, but I knew you’d be stubborn. You wouldn’t listen.” Mrs. Michael sighed, her face drawn and tense. Her words were jumbled, skipping around in time. “All of it had taken a lot longer than I’d expected and I knew Mary Helen was going to show up soon. So I had to go to the backup plan.”

  Vandenberg’s head came up. “Gordon?”

  “Yes.” She blushed, unable to meet his eyes. She took a deep breath, focusing on Cancini instead. “I told him this story about how I’d slept with his roommate. At first, I could tell he didn’t believe me but then, later, he did. I used some gossip from one of the waitresses where I worked. Some personal stuff. That did the trick.” Nora Michael took a breath. “I shouldn’t have done it, though. He was pretty mad, not that I blamed him. It was a rotten thing to do, but he hadn’t left me any choice.”

  “So you fought about the roommate?” Cancini asked.

  “Right. And then I tried to leave.”

  “That’s when he pushed you and you fell?” Cancini had heard the story on the tapes, but that was George’s story. This one belonged to her.

  “Yes. Mary Helen was supposed to get there after I was gone to comfort him, but I was still there when she pulled up. She saw everything. He didn’t even know she was there.”

  Cancini remembered the detailed timeline prepared by Dr. Michael. Sarah had been looking over George’s shoulder when she told her story, not because she couldn’t face him as George had assumed, but because she’d been expecting Mary Helen all along. Had Dr. Michael been trying to help George discover the truth on his own?

  “Mary Helen helped me to my feet and got me cleaned up. That’s when I cooked up the plan. She told me George thought he’d killed me, and I decided it was for the best. It was easier that way and I could leave town knowing he wouldn’t follow me. I wanted to start over. I wanted my brother to be able to start over and get all the chances he’d never been able to have with our parents.” Nora Michael looked at Mary Helen. “The money she offered was everything to us. It wasn’t a lot, but we had enough to move, change our names, and start college. If it weren’t for her, neither of us would have gotten as far as we did.”

  George’s lips curled. “You took a bribe.”

  “You’re wrong. I was grateful, don’t you see? I was going to leave anyway and she knew that. I didn’t leave because of the money. Mary Helen and I weren’t friends, but we understood each other. She helped me.”

  His face fell and his shoulders slumped. “But why? Maybe I was a jerk but I would have gotten the hint eventually. Why this way?”

  She bit her lip and turned her head away. “My husband was preoccupied with you, George. He told me about a man who’d committed an act he regretted, who was depressed and angry, that he hadn’t been able to help. He told me he thought you should come forward and confess.” Her voice cracked. “I didn’t know it was you. I wouldn’t have told them about you if I’d known. I swear.”

  Cancini watched as both Vandenbergs recognized the irony. The lie they’d shared had come full circle.

  A sob escaped Mary Helen’s lips. “It’s my fault,” she said. Her gaze slid to Cancini. “You knew, didn’t you? You knew I’d been to see Dr. Michael.” Cancini gave a quick nod. Dr. Michael had given it away on one of his session tapes, referring to Mrs. Vandenberg’s diminutive size and hinting at the impossibility of her moving Sarah after she was assumed to be dead. He couldn’t have known that without meeting Mary Helen. Again, the therapist had tried to help George see the truth without betraying Nora, but the patient’s self-­loathing had made that impossible. “It’s my fault. George didn’t confess because I knew then he’d find out the truth. Maybe not at first, but eventually. I was so afraid,” she said, the words difficult to understand between sobs. “I didn’t want to lose everything. I didn’t want him to know. I didn’t want him to hate me.” She couldn’t look at her husband, her head in her hands.

  Cancini watched the emotions play on Vandenberg’s face. Disbelief, anger, sadness, but mostly confusion.

  “Why didn’t Dr. Michael just tell me the truth? Why keep pushing the confession when he knew my wife was pushing me not to? He knew the stress was making everything worse. I kept getting madder and madder at him. Why didn’t he just tell me?”

  “He couldn’t,” Cancini said and cast a quick look at the widow. “There were ethics involved and he couldn’t betray things he’d learned from his patient.”

  “What do you mean? What patient?”

  “I think he means me,” Nora admitted after a moment. “I was one of my husband’s first patients. My brother introduced me to him. They were friends in med school, both studying psychiatry. I was having a hard time dealing with everything and what had happened, so he thought I should talk to someone. That someone was Edmund. A ­couple of years after I’d stopped going to therapy, we ran into each other and started dating, got married. It felt so natural and safe. But it doesn’t matter, everything I told Edmund before was privileged. He couldn’t tell you.”

  Stunned, George’s face was blank. “Oh.”

  “Your husband must have loved you, Mrs. Michael,” the detective said, “to keep your secret for so long.”

  Her lower lip trembled. “I suppose he did.”

  Cancini’s eyes swept the room, his job not yet finished. There was still a little guesswork to do, although after his trip to Boston, he had filled in most of the blanks.

  “Mrs. Michael, the day of your husband’s death, Mr. Vandenberg argued with your husband. That night, at a party, he had too much to drink. He left the party early, around ten, originally claiming he went straight home. However, a surveillance tape has come into our possession that places him in an all-­night convenience store just before twelve. The coroner estimates that your husband was murdered between nine and twelve. Mr. Vandenberg has no alibi for most of that time.” He studied each of the players, gauging their reactions. Mary Helen listened to every detail, eyes wide. Her husband, however, sat slumped again, resignation on his face. Mrs. Michael looked past him at the large pane of glass, her face unreadable.

  “Mr. Vandenberg owns a set of cooking knives. One is missi
ng, the same brand and size that was used to murder your husband. The coroner has also been able to give us a partial description of your husband’s assailant, including approximate height and strength. Mr. Vandenberg fits that description.” The detective paused. “In addition, Mr. Vandenberg voluntarily allowed us access to his sessions with your husband. They were all recorded on tape.” Mrs. Michael’s eyes met his, then dropped away again. “After listening to most of the tapes, we learned that Mr. Vandenberg did have a temper, had a history of blackouts, and was under tremendous pressure from your husband, at times expressing deep anger. Our precinct psychologist agreed with this assessment and the district attorney felt we had enough evidence to arrest Mr. Vandenberg.”

  Larry started to say something, seemed to think better of it, and closed his mouth. Mary Helen sobbed openly.

  “Dr. Michael knew the truth about Mr. Vandenberg and wanted him to confess, knowing if the truth were exposed, his patient might discover he wasn’t actually guilty of anything. I couldn’t understand at first why Dr. Michael was pushing so hard until my partner pointed out to me that the patient’s case had become almost personal to the therapist. I think he began to see Mr. Vandenberg as more than a patient, as someone to whom the truth was owed. I kept asking myself, What was in it for him? Reading through Dr. Michael’s notes, it occurred to me that he felt a responsibility that went beyond doctor-­patient. Against his will, he’d become a party to the lie, but professional ethics kept his hands tied. Yet I think he did everything he could to steer Mr. Vandenberg in the right direction.” Cancini walked toward the widow and placed his hands on the table. “He would no more betray George than he would betray you, Mrs. Michael.”

  She blinked, saying nothing.

  “Tell me about your relationship with your husband, Mrs. Michael.”