Cat in an Aqua Storm

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  “I hate this,” Temple gritted between her teeth just before the nurse bearing a clipboard led her into an examining room.

  “Come along, hon.” The nurse was a chubby, cheerful soul with bright blond hair cut into a modified punk crew cut, plus the obligatory rattail trailing down her broad, white-covered back.

  She took Temple’s blood pressure and wrote it on the clipboard. She handed her a hospital smock. “Just undress from the waist up. Opens in the back.” The nurse was almost out the door when Temple remembered an embarrassing fact.

  “Uh, wait! You’ll have to unhook me. My arm won’t go back.”

  “Sure thing,” the nurse said. “Should have remembered. You said your shoulder was really wracked up. Terrible what happens.” And she glanced at Temple from under blue-shadowed lids, her eyes holding a puzzling trace of blame.

  Tied by the nurse into the limp cotton smock and finally left to herself, sitting on the sanitary paper liner accorded each of the sequence of patients, her feet swinging free at the end of the examining table, Temple felt sore and tired and helpless.

  She had a while to wait for that feeling to end. The doctor didn’t come in for twelve minutes. Now he carried her life data on a clipboard. He was an Indian man with skin the color of brown shoe polish, blue-black hair and fine features. Like many professionally trained natives of that land, he radiated a benign good cheer reminiscent of Gandhi. Dr. Rasti.

  “Shoulder, arm, jaw and midsection.” He enumerated her injury zones in a pleasant singsong. “You are an unfortunate young lady. Let us see.”

  Away went the charade of the hospital gown as he drew it back in stages to poke and prod and examine.

  “Muggers, you say?”

  Temple nodded. She had wanted to write “car accident,” but then the police might want to know why it hadn’t been reported. Besides, her injuries were not consistent with a close encounter with a dashboard, even she knew that. Dr. Rasti scribbled a long entry between the fine lines of her clipboard sheet.

  His verbal diagnosis mirrored Matt’s: no serious—seerius, he chirped like a friendly bird—damage, only bruises and contusions. No X-rays needed. Ice packs. Rest. A prescription for painkillers. Call your own physician if any symptoms persist unreasonably.

  “As for here”—his hands thumped his white coat, his own chest—“perhaps bad bruises, discomfort. Will be fine.” Then he frowned at the clipboard. “Muggers very bad. More than one?”

  Temple nodded.

  “Two? Big men, bad men?”

  Temple nodded.

  Dr. Rasti shook his head and regarded her narrowly. “Very bad. I will have nurse step in. Little more business needed.”

  Temple sighed when he left and started to pull her bra on. The nurse rustled through the door, hooked the back and helped her pull her loose top over her head.

  The nurse held the clipboard, gave Temple a prescription, and finally flourished a brochure.

  “Now, Miss Barr.” She licked her lips. “Dr. Rasti is very worried. Your injuries...well, they are most unusual for a mugging. Usually scraped knees, a fractured elbow. Your injuries are the result of punches. I have a brochure from the Women’s Shelter—”

  “No. It wasn’t a battering.”

  “Sometimes it’s not easy to tell the difference. Sometimes it’s hard to say. Please, just check out the Women’s Shelter. You can call this number anytime, you don’t have to leave your name. Talk to them.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t need to. I’m not a victim of abuse.”

  “Nobody likes to think of themselves that way, but sometimes, when we love someone, it’s hard to be objective. We know they don’t mean it. We know they say they’re sorry—and they are—but they can’t guarantee they won’t be that way again. And again. It’s a cycle. You have to take some action to stop it.”

  “I tell you, there’s no need! All right, I’ll take your brochure. But I think it’s a free country and I can go now.”

  “Maybe I can help,” came a voice from the hall.

  A voice Temple knew well. She could have died.

  Lieutenant Molina walked in, her professional face on. The moment she saw Temple, the self-possessed expression melted as Temple had never had the satisfaction of seeing before. All that taut confidence grew slack and confused for an instant.

  The two women stared at each other in individual stupefaction. Molina recovered first, but she was on her feet and she wasn’t half-dressed.

  “I’ll handle this,” Molina told the nurse, in control again.

  “Thanks, Lieutenant.” The nurse vamoosed, brochure and all, but Molina held out her hand wordlessly for the clipboard. And got it. Now Molina was in full possession of all the facts of Temple’s life. She loved it, Temple thought savagely.

  “I can see,” Temple said, fuming, “why poor people hate coming to emergency rooms, if they’re going to be harassed as well as treated.”

  “Spotting battering cases is important.” Molina scanned the bottom of the clipboard, her heavy eyebrows lifting once or twice. She looked up at Temple. “You took quite a beating.”

  “Yes, I did, and I don’t need a verbal one now.”

  “The doctor and nurse did what they’re supposed to. Any trained medical or police personnel would recognize that you were the recipient of a deliberate beating.”

  “Recipient. What a nice, bureaucratic way of putting it.”

  “Calm down. I know you’re tough. I know you’re stubborn. You don’t have to pretend to be stronger than you are.”

  “Yes, I do, because I’m not six-blooming-feet tall and I don’t get to carry a badge and a gun!”

  Molina froze. She shrugged and backed up. Then she did something amazing. She stepped out of her low-heeled shoes and dropped an inch or so. “That better?”

  Temple’s righteous rage huffed and puffed and had nowhere to go. “Some. Listen. If I had been a victim of abuse, I’d be the first to cry ‘Wolf!’ Honest. These were strangers.”

  “Muggers hit and hurt on the run. They don’t hang around for the fun of it.”

  “Maybe these were sadistic muggers.”

  “I don’t buy that. Who is this Devine guy?”

  “I told you. A neighbor. What a world if he takes me to the emergency room—and if he hadn’t insisted, I wouldn’t have come—and ends up getting accused of being an abuser! So much for the survival chances of good Samaritans.”

  “We have to ask these questions,” Molina said patiently. “Doctors, nurses and police personnel haven’t done it enough in the past, so women and children have paid for it. Did you know that one-third of the women who come into an emergency room are victims of abuse?”

  Statistics hit home when argument would not. “No, I didn’t know. That many?”

  “And those are just the ones who come in. That doesn’t count the tough customers like you who refuse to go.”

  “Ouch. Okay, I can see why you have to ask. But you have to listen, too. And intimate abuse is not my problem, believe me.”

  “So many deny,” Molina said, then raised her hand as Temple bridled again. “Still, your story doesn’t wash.”

  “Maybe because it’s not the whole story.”

  Molina leaned against the wall. “Tell me.”

  So Temple did, hating it, but hating being thought an abusee worse. Molina listened, but her face never reflected her thoughts.

  “You could identify the men?” she asked at last.

  “I like to think so, but when you’re in the middle of a thing like that, it’s hard to look for identifying moles.”

  “We need you to look at some mug shots. Maybe tomorrow after you get some sleep.”

  “Okay.”

  “And they wanted to know Max Kinsella’s whereabouts?”

  Temple nodded.

  “Did you tell them?”

  “How could I? I don’t know.”

  “So you say.” Molina pushed herself away from the wall and resumed her shoes. She slid Temple a
glance from under her dark wings of eyebrow. Lord, that woman could benefit from a little female artifice, Temple thought.

  “Why now?” Molina asked when she stood, tall as ever, in front of Temple again. “Four months since Kinsella’s disappearance.”

  Temple just shook her head.

  “You need to take this seriously, so I’ll have to tell you something I don’t want to.”

  Temple perked up. It was about time the shoe slipped onto the other foot, even if it was a clodhopper.

  Molina’s lips worked reluctantly. Then she came out with a hail of words as blunt as bullets. “After Kinsella disappeared, the night he disappeared, a body was found in the surveillance area over the Goliath’s gaming area. Stabbed, once and well. The hotel’s assistant security director. You know all the casinos have skymen on watch through one-way mirrors and video equipment over the gaming areas? Well, the man’s body was found in an unauthorized peephole carved out of the air-conditioning vent. Only a clever and agile person could have managed that spy-hole, and getting someone else in it.”

  “You think Max—”

  “A magician could have done it, but whether he ran because he knew his accomplice was dead and figured he’d be next, or just because the man was dead and he’d done it, I don’t know. Nor do I know what was involved—abetting confederates at the tables below, or blackmailing cheaters, whatever.”

  “Whatever, in your book, Max’s a murderer or the prey of one.”

  “And if someone’s after him because he knows too much, they may not have bothered with you because they didn’t know who you are, or where you were: until you came back to the Goliath this week. You did frequent the place when Kinsella was appearing there?”

  “ ‘Frequent.’ Come on, Lieutenant, that makes me sound like a gun moll. Yes, I met Max there for a drink or dinner now and again. I went to a few shows.”

  “Didn’t you know the act by heart by then?”

  “His illusions may have been familiar, but Max and the audience were different every night. That’s what Max did. He never made anything seem the same twice.”

  Molina contemplated the interesting ramifications of that assessment without losing her cool, then nodded soberly. “They saw you again and decided to get some answers. That means they’re familiar with the Goliath and that you’re in danger working there. No chance you’d quit?”

  “The show must go on.”

  Molina shook her head. “Then it’ll go on with police all over the place. You’re tiptoeing around something a lot uglier than you’ve ever imagined. You’re lucky those two drivers had a set-to in the ramp, because even if you really don’t know where Max Kinsella might be, those thugs wouldn’t have stopped. They sound as if they enjoy their work.”

  Temple nodded. Lucky.

  “All right.” Molina stepped aside. “Come downtown tomorrow first thing for a mug-shot tour. I’ll alert the staff. If those men want Kinsella, I want those men.”

  “Better them than him,” Temple muttered as she hopped—ouch! —off the table.

  “What?”

  “I’ll do what I can, Lieutenant,” Temple said from the doorway. And then she skedaddled.

  Matt’s blond head hit her bleary eyes like a puddle of sunshine in the dreary waiting room. She headed straight for him and collapsed on the adjoining chair. It had been a long and traumatic evening.

  “I’m free to go. No X rays, no casts, no permanent injuries. They tried to lay an abuse rap on me, can you imagine? And we need to stop for a prescription on the way home.”

  Matt glanced at the white slip in her hand and nodded, then picked up Temple’s tote bag. He let it ease back to the floor again as Lieutenant Molina approached them.

  She suddenly squatted on her heels in front of Temple, her piercing eyes and serious face impossible to avoid.

  “I know you don’t listen to officials much, but no matter how your injuries happened, you’re a victim of a crime. You need to deal with that. Here’s the number of a self-help group. Give them a call. You’ll have a lot of rage. Your self-esteem has taken a body blow, too. Don’t be dumb. Talk to someone else who’s been through it.”

  Temple sat in silence.

  “She’s right,” Matt said.

  Temple glanced at the number. Heck, maybe they needed a freebie PR person. “Okay.”

  Molina patted Temple’s knee—Molina!—and rose. She flashed Matt a smile Temple had never seen, approving. “Thanks for the sensible support.”

  “I have to give it. I’m a hotline counselor.”

  Molina’s expressive eyebrows lifted before she nodded. “Then you’ll see that she does it.”

  “I’ll see that she’s encouraged to do it. Temple will do what’s she thinks is best for her.”

  “What’s best for her is what I suggested.”

  “Grrrr,” Temple remarked softly as Molina walked away. “What an insufferable woman.”

  Matt grinned as he watched Molina’s iron-straight navy-blue back disappear. “Insufferably right. Tacky of her. Reminds me of a mother superior. Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

  Home. A nice word. And nice to have someone to go there with.

  18

  A Roommate to Die For

  Temple felt about two hundred years old when she and Matt once again stood before her condo door. He unlocked it smoothly this time. She entered first, startled to find lights blazing. Electra Lark sat at her kitchen cafe table painting her fingernails black.

  The moment she saw Temple, Electra bounded upright and whirled over in a blaze of highly colored Hawaiian flora. Her welcoming embrace—arms wide and fingers splayed to protect her wet polish and Temple’s bruised frame—ended up as a gentle cheek-brush, during which Temple whiffed an unmistakable trace of Emeraude. Oh, no....

  Matt beamed like a Boy Scout. “I called Electra when you were seeing the doctor.”

  Electra’s ear cuffs rang. “I used the passkey to get your gel packs,” she told Matt. “They’re already on ice. I bet you two kids are starved! I could order a pizza.”

  “I’m not really hungry.” Temple toddled gingerly toward the living room.

  “Oh!” Her huge cocktail table stood by the French doors because her sleep-sofa had been opened and made up.

  “We’re not going to let you stay alone after what happened.” Electra’s tone brooked no disobedience.

  “We?” Temple asked.

  “Well, I made up the bed,” Electra said modestly, implying that she didn’t often stoop to such domestic make-work. “Matt said he’d stay tonight.”

  “Oh.” Temple turned to her new roommate. “What about your job?”

  “I called the hotline from the hospital, too.”

  “I’m all right. I don’t need baby-sitting.”

  Electra bustled between them. “Maybe we need to do it. Now, are these your pills? Hmm. Tylenol Three. You’ll sleep tonight. I’ll get you to bed, and then I’ll get the ice packs. Then maybe we can tempt you with—I know, ice cream.”

  “Why ice cream?” Temple asked in amazement. “That’s what I always let myself eat when I’m sick.”

  “And it doesn’t require chewing,” Matt added. “I’ll be right back. I need some things from upstairs!”

  “Fine,” Temple managed to say over her—ouch—shoulder. “The guest bath is to the left off the office.”

  “Now, what can I help with?” Electra waved her morbid fingernails again as she followed Temple into the bedroom, her thong sandals vigorously slapping parquet.

  Temple felt as if she were being trailed by an oversolicitous seal. “Forget the ice cream. What I really need is help getting out of these clothes.” Temple plucked at her knit top and turned her back to the landlady.

  “You poor little thing,” Electra clucked warmly while she undid the zipper and bra. Temple gritted her teeth against pain both physical and psychic. Electra was only trying to help. “Where’s your nightdress?”

  “That’s it.”

  �
��The Garfield T-shirt on the hook? Oh, cute.”

  Temple regarded the image of the self-satisfied tiger-striped cartoon feline regarding himself in a mirror under text that announced, “Gemini: Your double-edged nature means there’s more for everybody, but you can never get enough of yourself.” Cute didn’t seem to describe it.

  Lifting both arms to don the shirt was harder than it looked. “Electra, you’re a Florence Nightingale to help me out. I’m sorry to be such a bother.”

  “I’ve been called a rare old bird before, but never a nightingale.” Still, she blushed.

  Temple plodded in slow motion into the tiled bathroom and glimpsed herself in the mirror. Not flattering, but at least she didn’t look like Dracula’s daughter with dried blood clinging to her lips. In fact, she looked remarkably normal, except for a subtle swelling in her face and an overall smudging of her makeup. No wonder so many battered women managed to conceal the ugly secret.

  She ran the hot water tap, waiting for the warmth to rise up the elderly pipes, and finally dampened a washcloth. Wringing it out defeated her right arm, and she turned. Electra hovered behind her like a hotel maid.

  “I can do that, dear!”

  “Thanks.” Temple waited for the cloth, then wiped her face one-handed. When she turned again, Electra was poised right there with the vintage blue aluminum tumbler and the pharmacy bag.

  “Run a little cold water in this glass, and you can take your first pill.”

  The tiny bathroom, exquisitely tiled in a white and silver-gray pattern, was not up to a bumbling owner and a bustling landlady. They do-si-doed around each other and the pedestal sink, until Temple swallowed the pill and headed for the bed. Electra turned the ceiling fan on low and tucked her in.

  Just in time. A knock on the ajar door announced the return of Matt, bearing an armful of plastic packs loaded with blue goo. In moments he and Electra had mounded bath towels along Temple’s right side. Her arm and shoulder soon were growing numb against a long, lumpy ski jump of frozen packs.

  After installing her and turning off the lights, the pair decamped to the living room, from which Temple heard soft conversational tones—discussing her disaster, no doubt.