The Woman in Darkness

by Charlie Donlea

“This is why you should have woken me,” he said, taking her under the arm and leading her back upstairs. She allowed him to guide her into bed.

  “I saw that you vomited outside,” he said as he pulled the covers over her. “I’m calling the doctor in the morning. I know you’ve been resisting, Angela. But it’s time to see the psychiatrist. Someone has to help you through this, and I don’t know what else to do for you.”

  Angela had nearly run through her Valium. She’d need more, so she didn’t protest. As Thomas climbed into bed next to her, Angela closed her eyes, but never slept.

  CHAPTER 16

  Chicago, October 25, 2019

  THE FRACTURE HAD COME TOGETHER NICELY, BUT IT HAD TAKEN A larger amount of epoxy than she preferred using. The additional adhesive was needed to ensure the eye socket of Camille Byrd’s childhood doll remained intact. Rory was unable to get herself into the correct mind-set to reconstruct the woman’s murder, so she concentrated on Camille Byrd’s doll instead. Once Rory immersed herself in the restoration, she found the doll’s eye was the most challenging to repair. She had rebuilt the eye socket with a papier-mâché-and-plaster combination, a technique Sabine Esche had written about. Now that the epoxy and plaster had set, and the eye was seated in the orbit, Rory was pleased with the result. When the doll was laid down, there was just a slight delay in the closure of the eyelid, which only the most astute observer would notice.

  She sanded the adhesive so that the seam of the original fracture was smooth. When Rory closed her eyes and ran her fingers over the doll’s cheek, the fracture was undetectable. The feel of the doll’s face had been perfectly restored. The appearance of Camille Byrd’s childhood doll, however, still left much to be desired. The additional epoxy and heavy polishing had left a badly discolored patch that ran, like a stream on a map, from the hairline down to the edge of the jaw. The curved ribbon of tarnished porcelain looked like a poorly healed scar. Rory knew the skills she had utilized to repair the fracture and reconstruct the eye socket were unmatched. She also knew where her weakness lay, and that was in bringing porcelain back to its original state. For this task, she would go to a master. To the one person who was better than she was.

  It was approaching midnight when Rory walked into the nursing home. She had gained permission from the staff, and had been granted the access code to the front entrance, to visit so late at night. The nurses knew Greta rarely slept at night, and that Rory’s best chance for a coherent conversation usually came after midnight. Her last two visits with Aunt Greta had been failures. Since the passing of her father, Rory had trouble connecting with her great-aunt. With no children of her own, Aunt Greta’s family consisted of her nephew—Frank Moore—and his daughter. Rory’s father had been more like a grandson to Greta, and Rory like a great-grandchild. Over the course of her life, Rory had learned many things from Greta, including her love for restoring china dolls. It had once been their most cherished activity, restoring old dolls that had lined the walls of Greta’s house. Their mutual love of antique-doll restoration was the foundation of their relationship, and was how the two had become so close through Rory’s childhood. Now, since dementia had stolen Greta’s mind, the old dolls Rory brought to her bedside provided a different conduit to the past. They provided access to a part of Greta’s history that was filled with joy, rather than the agonizing moments of Greta’s life that the dementia usually dredged up.

  Tonight’s visit also carried selfish undertones. Since she had requested a meeting with The Thief, a tremor had taken hold of Rory’s hands, the way they used to tremble as a child. Anxiety had plagued her since a young age, and the only way Rory managed her childhood was through the calming nature of Aunt Greta and the dolls they restored together. Rory’s parents had known the effect Greta had on their child, and had shuttled Rory away when signs of her disorder became apparent. After a long weekend, or sometimes an extended stay that lasted a week or more, Rory would return to her parents’ house restored and renewed, much like the dolls she and Greta worked on. Tonight Rory needed the same healing powers Greta had delivered to her when she was a lost child.

  Rory carried Camille Byrd’s Kestner doll into the darkened room. Aunt Greta sat upright in bed with her eyes open, staring at nothing. Rory visited during the night not only because it was the most likely time to catch Greta in a coherent state, but also because Rory knew that sleep rarely came to her great-aunt during the small hours of night. The thought of Aunt Greta lying awake, staring into space, was never a comforting one. The woman had given Rory so much in life that Rory refused to allow her to spend the last stretch of her life alone.

  “Hey, old lady,” Rory said when she approached the bedside.

  Greta’s eyes flicked to the side, catching a glimpse of Rory for just an instant.

  “I tried to save you. There was too much blood.”

  “I know,” Rory said. “You did the best you could. And you helped many, many patients during your career.”

  “There’s too much blood. We have to go to the hospital.”

  “Aunt Greta, everything is okay now. Everyone is safe.”

  “We have to go. I need help. There’s too much blood.”

  Rory paused a moment as she stared at her. Finally she took her hand and squeezed gently. “You promised you’d help me with a restoration. Do you remember?”

  Rory placed the box containing the Kestner doll on the bed. She immediately saw her aunt’s demeanor change. Greta looked down at the doll, whose damaged face was visible through the window in the lid.

  “I had to use a lot of epoxy to fix the fracture, which required a great deal of sanding to smooth. I have it repaired perfectly, but need some help getting the porcelain back to its original color.”

  Greta sat more upright in bed as Rory opened the box, removed the doll, and placed it on her aunt’s lap. Rory found the controls and lifted the back of the bed upward so that Greta was fully erect.

  “I brought your pastels,” Rory said, removing from her backpack a large assortment of fingernail polish–sized glass bottles filled with different colors. She wheeled the bedside table over and set the paints on the surface.

  “I need better light,” Greta said. Her voice was scratchy and hoarse, different now than the high-pitched ramblings when she was trapped in the throes of dementia.

  Rory pulled over the lamp, clicked on the overhead lights, and watched her go to work. She was immediately transported to her childhood, to Greta’s home, to the room lined with dolls, and the workstation where she and Greta had spent hours and hours.

  “Hey,” Rory said while Greta painted a foundation coating over the repaired fracture. She kept her eyes on the Kestner doll as she spoke. “I’ve got to do something that’s got me … scared.”

  Rory never used the words “nervous” or “anxious.” To do so would be to admit too much. Greta kept working, not even a glance in Rory’s direction. She was lost in the restoration.

  “I’ve got to meet with someone Dad used to work with. A client.”

  Rory waited a moment for any indication that Greta had heard her.

  “He’s a bad man. An evil man, from what I know. But I have no choice but to meet with him.”

  Greta finally stopped stroking her brush over the doll’s face to look at Rory. “You always have a choice.”

  Rory paused a moment. “I guess that’s true.”

  Greta went back to the doll, all her concentration channeled on coloring the repaired fracture streaming down from the eye socket.

  Of course, Greta’s words were accurate. Rory could have simply told the judge that she would not take the case. Was she legally obligated to do so? It was a gray area. Being a partner in her father’s law firm put Rory next in line to take his cases, but had she simply refused to do so, there was little Judge Boyle could have done. The truth was that Rory had already made the choice. She was meeting with this man for a reason. She had chosen to visit him face-to-face because there was something her father had been h
iding. Rory wanted to know what it was, and the only person who could tell her was the man sitting in jail, waiting on his parole.

  Greta spoke again as she attended to the doll, her brushstrokes even and purposeful as the fissure began to disappear. “Nothing can scare you unless you allow it to scare you.”

  Rory smiled and sat back in her chair. She loved the rare moments when she was able to connect with Greta, whose mind lately had seemingly been ravaged and stolen.

  Two hours later, the first coat was finished and drying. To a casual observer, Camille Byrd’s doll looked perfect. But Rory knew it would take two more coats of paint and polish before it was truly flawless. For this, she was grateful. It meant she would soon have an opportunity to reconnect with her great-aunt again.

  CHICAGO

  August 1979

  THE DAY AFTER HER BIRTHDAY WAS SPENT UNDER THOMAS’S WATCHFUL eye. Angela did her best to keep things together as she acclimated herself to the idea of seeing a psychiatrist. There was no way to avoid it, and she knew Thomas would press the issue. Wild bouts of memories came back to her as she remembered her teen years spent under the authoritarian rule of her doctor, in whom her parents had placed their trust that he would control her wild outbursts, her self-inflicted wounds, and morph their introverted child into a “normal” outgoing teenager.

  Angela had swallowed the last of her Valium after her venture to the garage the night before, and when the sun brightened the frames of the bedroom windows this morning, she was eager for the world to pull her from another night of torment. Alone in bed now, once the nine o’clock hour came, she heard Thomas making phone calls. One of his calls was to Dr. Solomon, Angela knew, asking for a referral to a shrink. Angela had never mentioned to Thomas that Dr. Solomon’s original recommendation had found its way into the trash, or that the doctor’s last few phone calls had gone unreturned.

  Angela finally climbed from bed as Thomas continued to talk on the phone, his deep voice rumbling from the kitchen. She showered and dressed. When she walked downstairs, Thomas was drinking coffee at the kitchen table and analyzing a spreadsheet for work.

  “I made coffee,” he said. “Are you feeling better?”

  “A little, yes,” Angela lied as she poured a cup and sat across from him.

  “I called the doctor,” Thomas said. “He’s out of the office until tomorrow. I left a message. I think I should go with you when you see the psychiatrist.”

  Angela didn’t protest, just nodded.

  “And I’ve got a problem with the job in Indiana. They need me to come down and have a look. At this time of morning, I’ll miss rush hour, will get down there by early afternoon. Then I’ll get back by tonight. Shouldn’t be later than eight.”

  Angela felt for the first time that she might have overdone it with the Valium. A wave of indifference had come over her since she swallowed the last of the pills after her trip to the garage the previous night. The necklace hidden in the picnic basket, and thoughts of Thomas’s infidelity, ricocheted through her mind. She thought of his late nights at the office, and his spree of out-of-town jobs that had him frequently spending nights away from home. Add that to Catherine’s dismissal of her findings, and Angela felt alone and isolated with no one to turn to. That wasn’t true, she reminded herself. Through the fog of hazy thoughts, she knew she’d always have one person in her life she could trust. And the offer to help Angela “at any time, for any reason,” had been unconditional. Angela had never thought she would need that help. Not since she had been saved, when she was eighteen, had she needed help. Since then, she had been on her own, free from the confines of her parents and the shrinks and the psychiatric facility where they held her prisoner. But this morning, for the first time in years, Angela needed help. After all these years, she wondered if the offer still stood.

  “Will you be okay by yourself?” Thomas asked. “I can call Catherine to see if she could stay with you today.”

  “No,” Angela said.

  Her mind wandered back to her childhood when her parents watched her like hawks, always fearing the worst if they left Angela alone. And Catherine was no longer someone she could confide in.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Thomas nodded, taking a long look at his wife. “The girl at Dr. Solomon’s office said he sometimes returns calls from home, so if the phone rings, make sure to answer it. She said he’s been trying to reach you, that he’s called a couple of times.”

  Angela stared at her coffee. She felt the walls of her world constricting on her. She had erased Dr. Solomon’s messages from the answering machine with the illogical thinking that if she erased the messages she’d never have to talk with him. With the nonsensical reasoning that deleting Dr. Solomon’s voice and his request for a return call would prevent her from having to return to the world of psychiatrists. Finally Angela looked up at her husband and shrugged. “He hasn’t called, that I know of. But I’ll make sure to answer if the phone rings.”

  Thirty minutes later, she watched as Thomas backed out of the garage and into the alley. He pulled slowly away, headed back to Indiana for the day. The rumble of the truck’s engine was barely out of earshot by the time Angela was on the move. She had been unable to follow the news for the past couple of days, knowing that Thomas would not like the idea of stirring her paranoia with news articles about the girl whose body had been found the week before.

  Now, with Thomas gone, Angela felt a sudden urge for the latest details of the case. She longed for anything to take her mind off the idea that Thomas could be having an affair. She hadn’t seen or heard any updates about Samantha Rodgers since she had listened to the radio report the morning at the warehouse. She turned on the television, but with Thomas’s late start this morning, all she found was the start of daytime television. The morning newscasts had ended more than an hour ago. She clicked on the radio next and tuned to 780AM for the latest news. Ten minutes of stock market talk and commercials passed before she decided to look for the newspaper.

  The front stoop was empty and the driveway bare when she looked for the Tribune. She figured Thomas had already fetched it, and she checked the bathroom, a disgusting habit she’d never been able to break him of. When she was unable to locate the paper in the house, she decided to check the trash. She walked to the alley and lifted the lid to the trashcan. Inside, on top of black plastic Glad bags, rested an unread Tribune still wrapped in the plastic bag in which it was delivered. Angela rescued it from the trash and hurried inside.

  The Tribune was filled with stories of The Thief and details about the only victim whose body had been found. Angela pulled at her eyelashes as she carefully read the articles, one at a time, and then delicately clipped them from the paper with a scissors to add to her growing file. She turned the page and started a new article that covered Samantha Rodgers and the shallow grave where her body was found. Angela’s skin tingled as she read the story:

  The body of Samantha Rodgers was discovered in a wooded area of Forest Glen, less than a mile from the main road. Deep bruising found on her neck, discovered during autopsy, suggests that she was strangled. The Chicago Police are asking for any information about the victim from the night she disappeared, and are leaning hard on Samantha Rodgers’s parents’ suggestion that on the night she went missing, Samantha was wearing a peridot-and-diamond necklace she had received for her graduation the month before. The police are approaching all city and suburban pawn shops to see if a necklace matching the parents’ description will be found, hoping for the first lead in the summer’s missing persons cases.

  The necklace in question carries an engraving of the victim’s initials and birth date on the back: SR 7-29-57.

  Any information can be reported to the phone number below.

  Angela looked up from the paper. Her world narrowed in a migrainous aura of tunnel vision that captured only the utility door to the garage as she gazed through the kitchen window. She was on her feet in a flash, following the periscope of vision and head
ing out the back door.

  CHAPTER 17

  Chicago, October 26, 2019

  RORY WAS IN FULL BATTLE GEAR—GLASSES, BEANIE HAT, GRAY jacket, and lace-up combat boots. Her face burned crimson as she sat in her car in the parking lot. She took deep breaths as she thought of sitting across from her father’s oldest client, a cold and calculating killer, pretending to hammer out the details of his release. An odd guilt came over her when she considered the notion that her dead father had some nefarious business relationship with this killer from 1979.

  “Nothing can scare you unless you allow it to scare you.” She took a few more calming breaths, and allowed the attack to escape her lungs with each exhale. When her hands were steady, and her lungs freely expanding and contracting without the hiccup rhythm of panic, Rory opened the car door, stood from the passenger seat, and sucked in the cool fall morning. She stood in front of Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, Illinois. It was where The Thief had been housed for the past forty years.

  She had her identification prepared, the paperwork filled out ahead of time, and a copy of Judge Boyle’s orders to permit the impromptu visit. Still, processing moved slowly. She was finally called to the window to fill out additional visitation forms. A woman slid the partition window to the side and looked up from her computer.

  “Name, please?”

  “Rory Moore.”

  “Relationship to the inmate?”

  “Attorney.”

  The woman typed on her computer for a moment.

  “Name of the inmate?”

  Rory looked at the file in her hands, read the name from the bottom flap.

  “Thomas Mitchell.”

  CHICAGO

  August 1979

  THE UTILITY DOOR TO THE BACK OF THE GARAGE WAS WIDE OPEN AS Angela pulled the picnic basket off the shelf. The wicker top rolled a few feet away when she dropped it, spinning on its edge like a coin as it twirled several times before coming to a rest. Angela had the necklace in her hand, dropping the case that held it to the ground, and was closely examining it. The green peridot and surrounding diamonds were dull this morning in the poorly lit garage, different from the morning when she had first discovered it. Back then, she had sat with the bright morning sun bringing the gemstone to life. So much was different now than had been that morning, like the light of her life had been drained from her, just like from the gemstones.