Chill Factor

by Chris Rogers

  “The page marked in the Poe book is where Auguste Dupin finds the purloined letter.”

  Dixie didn’t understand his point. “So?”

  Parker waved it off. “Guess it’s nothing.”

  “What?”

  “Okay. The purloined letter was hidden in plain sight in a card rack above a writing desk. Maybe Ted took a hint from Edgar and hid an important drawing among the others.”

  Dixie studied the triangle, with its blue and red background. “Or maybe Ted found this one painted on a building among other tags and recognized it as … I don’t know, a new gang in the area?”

  Parker grinned. “Or like you said, Sherlock, maybe he just used them as a bookmark.”

  With a glance at her watch, Dixie slid everything back in the envelope to think about later and pushed aside her unfinished burger. She was about to be late for her “therapy” session with Vernice Urich, the woman who reputedly knew everyone’s secrets.

  Chapter Forty-three

  A small brass sign that read VERNICE URICH, PH.D., M.S.W., A.C.P. hung beside the psychotherapist’s front door. Vernice worked out of her home, a modest 1950s bungalow in a neighborhood of newer, more pretentious two-story constructions.

  Before ringing the bell, Dixie paused to clear away any hostile thoughts. She innately distrusted people who poked around in other people’s minds. She was here to find out why Aunt Edna had sought psychotherapy. Although Marty no longer seemed interested in how his mother became armed and dangerous, Dixie couldn’t let it go.

  “Here you are, exactly on time,” Vernice Urich greeted her. “I do appreciate punctuality, Dixie. Don’t you?”

  “Especially when I’m paying for it.” Whoops, was that a hostile thought?

  But Vernice smiled, with even white teeth too precise to be the version she was born with. In the bright afternoon light, her wrinkled face appeared sunken. Yet her eyes held the sparkle of youth. Maybe that’s why Dixie believed the woman wasn’t as old as she first appeared.

  “Follow me, dear.”

  The home’s modest exterior gave way to more gilt and chintz than Dixie’d seen except in magazines, as Vernice led the way to an office immediately off the entry. Originally, it would’ve been a formal living room, Dixie supposed.

  “Would you like tea? I have Apple Spice and Earl Grey.”

  In the dim lighting, Dixie squinted to see an ornate cart with china cups and saucers, hot water, tea bags, sugar, cream, and packets of artificial sweetener. A massive carved desk in a style her uninformed eye decided was baroque occupied half the room. A brocade chair with delicate claw feet perched in front of it.

  “Earl Grey sounds good.” Dixie eyed the antique, certain it would collapse if she sat down.

  Vernice gestured toward a pair of wingbacks in the corner, wearing the same classy fabric.

  “A woman as attractive as you, Dixie, I’m frankly amazed you escaped matrimony all these years,” she commented once they were seated, Dixie’s teacup balanced on her knee.

  The praise sounded false, perhaps because Dixie had heard better flatterers recently. She made no response.

  Vernice opened a stenographer’s tablet. “When were you born, dear?”

  “I’m thirty-nine.” For a few more months.

  “You don’t look a day over thirty. But let’s be more specific. First, your birth date. Including the time, if you know it.”

  “November third. Four-twenty on a Tuesday afternoon.” Pain you wouldn’t believe, Carla Jean had told her. Like pulling teeth out through your navel.

  “When did you reach womanhood?”

  “Pardon?”

  “When did you start menstruating, dear? It marks the time that boys rightly begin to occupy one’s thoughts more frequently than dolls.”

  “I don’t recall ever thinking about dolls.” Not that Carla Jean hadn’t supplied a few. Dixie’s birth mother loved the ones with fancy dresses and curly hair, dolls that sat on a shelf or a dresser, big glassy eyes, painted cheeks, vacuous smiles. Dixie preferred books, which Carla Jean considered a waste of money. Once you’ve read one, what good is it? she’d ask.

  “Just a figure of speech,” Vernice amended. “Meaning childish things. At onset of menstruation we trade toys for boys. How old were you?”

  “Ten. But that’s not what I wanted to talk about—”

  “We’ll get there, dear. Let’s take care of a few more questions. When did you first kiss a boy?”

  None of your damn business. Dixie had never consulted a psychotherapist, but she’d taken the standard college courses, plus criminal psychology in law school. Vernice’s technique struck her as offbeat and pushy. Or was that just another hostile thought?

  “I was in high school. About fifteen, I guess.” If you don’t count my mother’s sicko boyfriends. Dixie scanned a bookcase near the desk: Astrology for Everyone, What’s Your Number, A Guide to Numerology, Sex Signs, The Modern Woman’s Book of Wicca. Vernice’s choice of reading material lent a different slant to her questions.

  “A special night? A holiday, perhaps? I’d prefer the exact date, if we can burrow down and find it.”

  “May first.” Until that moment, Dixie hadn’t remembered. The PTA had sponsored a fund-raising bazaar to buy uniforms for her high school baseball team. She and Marty slipped away early to see an afternoon showing of Elmer Gantry. He’d kissed her in the dark.

  “And the first time you fornicated.”

  “What?”

  “Sex, dear. When was your first unmarried encounter?”

  “Did you ask Edna Pine these questions?”

  “Edna Pine?” Vernice’s toothy smile vanished.

  “What sort of questions did you ask her?”

  “I can’t imagine why you’d want to know that. You’re no bigger than a minute—you can’t possibly want to lose weight.” When Dixie remained silent, Vernice continued. “But I can tell you we create very successful programs for weight loss, through hypnotic suggestion. Was Edna a close friend, dear?”

  Hypnotic suggestion? Interesting. “A neighbor. I grew up with her son.”

  “Ah-ha! And was he the first boy in your young life? The one who broke your heart?”

  How did she know that? Dixie loathed having her thoughts read as if every line were written on her face.

  “Was he the one who broke your cherry, dear?”

  “No!” What was this woman, a verbal voyeur?

  “I can see this was a painful experience, but once we get those old tapes played out, we can help you assume a more satisfying alliance with your sexuality.”

  Oh, really? Hocus-pocus pop psychology, with numbers and star signs and witchcraft? Dixie scanned the walls for a diploma.

  “My friend Edna—”

  “I can’t talk about another client. Surely you realize that would be most unethical. You wouldn’t want me revealing your deepest secrets, would you?”

  “But Edna’s dead.” Dixie decided to cut to her real reason for this meeting. “What you discussed could have some bearing on … events that led to her death.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “She robbed a bank at gunpoint. She shot a police officer. The Edna Pine I knew growing up couldn’t harm a gopher. She used herbs to discourage pests from eating her plants. Something happened within the past few months to change that gentle chubby woman into a trim, sleek, very ungentle thief. And you’re the person who poked around in her mind. What did you do in there?”

  “My goodness, you have a distorted view of psychotherapy. Even if I could effect such a change, why would I?”

  But Vernice’s hand had started moving over the tablet page—making meaningless doodles, from what Dixie could see.

  “Money, for starters. Edna paid you a healthy fee.” Actually, Dixie had no idea what Edna paid, if anything. She’d found no checks issued to Vernice Urich. “But your fee’s nothing compared to the unrecovered money stolen from Texas Citizens Bank.”

  Vernice smiled. “Me,
a female Svengali? Too much film and television, dear. Hypnosis doesn’t turn people into helpless drones.”

  But her hand kept moving, drawing circles and stars and arrows, with Vernice never glancing at the page.

  Chapter Forty-four

  “Keep your incompetent hands off of this, Wanamaker. Let the FBI handle it.”

  As he spit the words, Gib Gibson’s hawkish nose hovered beside Ed’s cheek. Ed itched to reach up and twist it.

  “If we sit back and do nothing,” Banning argued, “the media will crucify us all.” Banning had summoned Ed to his office after Gib dropped by with his usual meddling demands.

  Ed didn’t care about the media. But he thought the FBI might be headed in the wrong direction. Third-world terrorists? Those letters had looked homegrown to Ed.

  Gib turned his pointy nose at Banning.

  “I say we provide any support requested, but otherwise stay out of their way. What we don’t need is a bunch of bumbling locals muddying the trail.” The greenish-brown suit he wore had been tailored to fit his trim, muscular body and, the way Gib stood, stiff as a general issuing orders, Ed could imagine brass stars on the Councilman’s shoulders.

  “What trail?” Ed asked mildly.

  “If you understood professionalism, Wanamaker, perhaps the FBI would take you into their confidence.”

  “I suppose you think they’ll confide in you?” Ed hoped The People turned up in an FBI database, but he wouldn’t put money on it. And he didn’t want his own men sitting on their thumbs while a bunch of wrongheaded punk assassins snuck around in the shadows with rifles.

  “What about protection?” Banning suggested. “Ed, can you put a couple of officers at each house? The feds didn’t say—”

  “Are you scared, Avery?” Gib grinned, even more snidely than usual. “Must be soiling your britches if you think a bodyguard could stop a sniper’s bullet. Be a waste of taxpayers’ money.”

  Ed had to agree. The Mayor’s twenty-four-hour guard came with the job, but it wouldn’t be enough. No way could the department spare enough men to sweep three neighborhoods around the clock. And the FBI boys were too busy punching their keyboards.

  “Unlike you, Councilman,” Banning replied evenly, “I can’t hide inside my house for thirty-six hours. The Memorial Day Commemorative—”

  “Another monumental waste!” Gib turned his nose back toward Ed. “I’m telling you, Wanamaker, stay out of the way on this, or I’ll see that your every stupid move makes headlines!”

  He snatched the door open and stalked out.

  As an army noncom, Ed had taken plenty of bullshit orders from officers, but this was civilian life. Gib could cram his demands up his Marine-tight ass.

  But when the latch snapped shut, Ed said, “Gib does have a sympathetic ear on all the local news teams. Loud and irritating gets lots of attention.”

  Banning tugged at his trouser knee to keep the stretch out before crossing his legs. He always looked like someone had rolled him off an inspection line, cleaned, clipped, pressed, and Scotchgarded.

  “What are you planning to do, Ed?”

  “When you think about it, thirty-six hours isn’t a helluva lot of time. Maybe you and Gib should lay low. Let the feds dig.” Ed raked a hand through his wiry hair. “We’ll roust all the usual gangs, give ’em a chance to tell what they know.”

  Banning turned his deliberate politician’s gaze at Ed.

  “Chief, ‘laying low’ is not what I want to hear from you. I have a job to do. And so do you.”

  Ed found a sunflower seed in his pocket and cracked it. Banning was an okay guy until he pulled this control crap. But Ed wasn’t buying his tough act this time. The Mayor was more concerned than he wanted to let on.

  Chapter Forty-five

  In the subdued lighting of Vernice’s office, Dixie watched the psychotherapist’s hand move across the page, making circles, squares, triangles, and wondered if the marks were more than mere doodles. Dixie’s gaze flickered to a mahogany cabinet she had first thought to be a buffet; now she recognized it as an executive file cabinet. Somehow, she needed to arrange five minutes alone with those files.

  “My dear, you are unfailingly loyal, aren’t you?” Vernice asked, still scribbling. “Even to your mother—who doesn’t deserve it, you know. She didn’t provide a decent childhood.”

  How could she even guess that? Dixie’s natural mother, Carla Jean, lay in a long-term care facility, an invalid who no longer recognized her only daughter. As a mother, Carla Jean had struck out miserably. Never married. Entertained a string of lovers and never acknowledged that some of them found their way into Dixie’s bedroom before the Flannigans adopted her. But after decades of separation, Dixie rarely missed a Sunday visit. Maybe that was loyalty. Dixie didn’t always know why she did things that seemed to need doing.

  She cleared her throat. “Did Edna ever mention her son?”

  “My dear, eating habits are so complicated, and family situations always figure in, don’t they?”

  Was that a yes?

  “Like your situation,” Vernice continued. “You shouldn’t be alone so much. It isn’t healthy, and you haven’t missed the childbearing years completely. There’s still time. A son or daughter would bring so much joy to your life. Scorpios are sexual creatures. I’m sure you’ve had your share of fornication, Dixie, but let a man get close enough to make nesting noises and you scramble away like a frightened crab. Why do you suppose that happens?”

  “I don’t scramble.” At least, not from Parker. He created the distance.

  “Color it with your own crayons, but you can’t abide any infringement on your privacy. That’s Scorpio. Yet your Taurus moon craves intimacy and, my dear, this aspect pulls you in opposite directions at times, doesn’t it? You desire that closeness, that deep understanding and familiarity and tenderness that you’ve brushed against. But it’s frightening to let someone get near enough to really know you.”

  Terrifying.

  “Cows,” Vernice said.

  “Pardon me?”

  “Cows walking to their death. Peacefully. Because a woman, a scientist, discovered the magic of hugging. Hugging the cows calmed them as they neared the slaughterhouse. We all need hugging, dear. Even a privacy-loving Scorpio.”

  “Did you and Edna talk about astrology?”

  “Astrology is a tool, Dixie, merely a tool, but an extremely useful tool that digs deep with sharp little teeth. Edna, with her Pisces conjunction, was a sponge that had been squeezed dry by her family and tossed aside to desiccate. She found astrology fascinating. You do, too, don’t you? Secretive Scorpio can’t stand anyone else having secrets. When we know a person’s planetary signature, their secrets are like stamens on a morning glory, exposed in the sunlight.”

  “Edna’s husband died. He didn’t toss her aside.”

  “Didn’t he? What is death but the ultimate abandonment for those of us who remain behind? You’ve experienced it, Dixie.”

  Kathleen and Barney. In the space of eighteen months she’d lost them both. Kathleen battled the cancer right to the end, but Barney practically packed his bags and waited for the Grim Reaper to beckon. She’d watched him disappear a little each day, fading like an old snapshot.

  Was that what happened to Edna? Had she missed Bill so much she found her own way to follow him?

  “Vernice, was Edna on a suicide mission? Do you counsel your patients to seek death?” Hypnotic suggestion, maybe?

  “What else is death but deliverance? I counsel my patients to explore the destiny they’ve been dealt. You’ve drawn a difficult star path, Dixie, filled with obstacles and disappointments. Every time you knock one of those Scorpio boulders out of your way, every time you smile in the face of your Pisces disillusionment, don’t you feel stronger for it?”

  “Pisces? You said Edna was Pisces.”

  “Sun and moon, double the compassion, double the illusion, born to view the world through rose-colored glasses. But you, Dixie, have Pisce
s rising, softening your Scorpio-Taurus crust. When you want to be oh-so-tough, Pisces draws a curtain aside and forces you to see human frailty. When you want to be oh-so-perceptive, Pisces fogs your vision. Neptune, the Piscean ruler, loves to expose your vulnerability. A dastardly bastard, isn’t he, dear?”

  “Are you saying Edna’s loss—and her planets—left her vulnerable to illusionists?” Terrence Jackson. Lonnie Gray. Vernice Urich. “And to misjudgments?”

  “Were we talking about Edna, dear? I thought we were discussing you.”

  Chapter Forty-six

  Dixie sat in her Mustang, fingering Vernice’s appointment card and trying to decide whether to toss it into her plastic trash bag. No matter how she approached the question, the woman had refused to admit or deny having Lucy Ames as a patient. If she’d never counseled Lucy, why not say so? She’d owned up to hypnotizing Edna into weight loss—more or less. How many other Fortyniners had the woman seduced with her pseudo-psychology?

  A good word, “seduced.” Lonely people attracted charlatans of all types. Telephone scam artists made fortunes, promising riches from a “small” investment, or soliciting donations to the “Police Officers’ Widows Fund,” or threatening arrest for some imaginary offense unless the person put up a cash “security” bond. A silver tongue and a stone conscience were all the tools a good con needed.

  And the only difference between a con and a sale is the value of the product.

  Had Dixie received value for the consultation fee she paid Vernice? The woman’s insights had hit damned close to home. Let a man get close and you scramble like a frightened crab. Eerie.

  Dixie’s insistence on clinging to a lifestyle that kept distance between her and Parker might be considered scrambling. Parker had tried to get close. When the danger he saw in Dixie’s work made him back off, she’d refused to consider setting the work aside. Bounty hunting wasn’t even a true career choice—she’d merely landed there after turning away from her real profession. With her income from the pecan farm, she certainly didn’t need the big fees she earned. She could choose to practice law again. Not as a prosecutor—she’d lost her stomach for it. And she’d never jump to Belle’s side of criminal law—a guilty client had a right to a decent defense, but not from Dixie. That left plenty of options in civil law. Why had she dismissed those without a passing consideration?