How could he have missed all the clues that must be there? A person with the capacity to commit these acts had those threads of control, of destruction, of violence, of inappropriate behavior woven throughout their personality. How could he have been blinded to them?
Simple. He hadn’t wanted to see them.
His interest in Irene—particularly in this Irene, this black-wigged, black-leathered, heavily made up Irene—this Miss Lillian—was more than professional, more than family, more than casual. It wasn’t exactly recent interest, and it wasn’t exactly wholesome.
Chapter 11
In the prison visiting room, Cynthia looked out through the dirty glass at Joseph, sitting with the black telephone up to his ear, waiting for her to respond, but she couldn’t remember the question. Had he asked her one? Some little kid had smeared what looked like ice cream on the glass, along with a million fingerprints, distorting Joseph’s face.
She felt numb. She wasn’t even sure she felt like fighting any more.
Joseph looked like another world, a world she barely recognized. She knew she looked like trash. She couldn’t blame Joseph for losing interest in her case as well as in her. She couldn’t believe anybody would be motivated to help someone like her get out of jail.
She tried to concentrate on what he was saying.
“Dark skinned men, Cynthia,” Joseph said slowly, as if to a child. “Both you and Irene are attracted to dark skinned men. Why?”
What a stupid question. Maybe things were as stupid out there as they were inside. What kind of an answer did he want to a question like that?
Myron. Her stepfather.
He’d rescued her and Irene and their mother from the life of poor white trash they were becoming.
Cynthia and Irene’s father, a freelance farrier, left the three of them living in a tiny, leaky travel trailer in the middle of a weedy lot out by the train tracks. They had no neighbors. A wheel-less old Pontiac on cinder blocks with weeds growing up through the engine was their only asset. The rest of the place was littered with rusty cans and old tires, and the girls played games with horseshoes from the big wooden boxes under the trailer.
One day the girls were sent home from school with lice in their hair and the Public Health Service sent young Dr. Myron Nottingham out to their rundown trailer. The girls got lice from the chickens, the doctor told their mother, and Cynthia remembered how her mother leaned against the tiny sink, looking worn out, hopeless, helpless. “Don’t let the girls play with the chickens anymore,” he said.
Cynthia remembered the shampoo that stung her scalp and burned her eyes, and she remembered her mother’s hard fingers as she scrubbed that nasty stuff into her hair. Even Irene cried.
Then they dressed up all nice in dresses from Saint Vincent’s, stepped gingerly through the weeds, walked down the road and caught the bus to town to call on the nice doctor in his office.
The doctor examined the girls, then they had to sit quietly while he and their mom spoke in low tones. Irene had on shiny black shoes and little socks with lace around the edges. Cynthia wore black and white saddle shoes with white tights. They looked at their feet and picked burrs from their socks, listening to their mother talk gently with the black doctor.
Soon a black-haired fat lady began to babysit for them at night. She always cooked rice in tomato sauce for dinner.
And then Myron asked them if it would be all right if he became their daddy, and they could move into his big house right in town, right in Reno. “I can’t bear to hear the trains any more,” their mother told him, and the girls would cringe every time she mentioned the trains. Neither of the girls wanted Myron to know their mom was insane over the trains. “He’d hear that train whistle,” she’d say, and her eyes would look into some distant memory, “and then he’d go. Sometimes right then, in the middle of the night, he’d get out of bed and he’d go. Sometimes he’d be gone a week, sometimes a month, sometimes six months. And then one time, he got on with that train whistle and he never come back at all.”
“You can’t hear the train from my house,” Myron said softly, and their mother smiled at him.
And then the wedding, the wonderful wedding.
Myron.
Cynthia remembered sitting in Myron’s lap while he read. In his den, he had a big, dark red leather chair with buttons all over it, and a lamp with a green glass shade. One night in particular, she remembered climbing up into his lap to play with one of his hands. He indulged her while he researched through one of his endless supply of heavy medical books.
“Daddy?”
“Shhh, sweetheart, just a minute while I finish this.”
She picked up his hand, a surgeon’s hand, finely manicured and soft. It was so different from her own pudgy pink one—his was bright pink under the fingernails, tan on the palm with dark lines in the creases, and dark brown on the back. No hair grew out of the back of his hand, the skin was networked with fine wrinkles, yet as smooth to the touch as her babyish-looking unlined one.
Periodically, he removed his hand from her scrutiny in order to turn a page, then he gave it back to her to inspect, and she slid her fingers over the skin reverently. Now and then she looked at the words in the book, but her third-grade vocabulary didn’t take her very far.
When he finished, he closed the book, took off his reading glasses and set them both on the side table. “Bedtime for you,” he said.
“I love you, Daddy,” she said, looking up into his warm, soft face.
“I love you too, sweetheart.” He kissed her on the top of the head, then helped her down and out of the chair. She ran out into the hallway, to Irene, who had been standing in the doorway, watching.
Myron picked up a different book, put his glasses back on, opened the book at the bookmark and began to read.
Irene flashed Cynthia a challenging look, then entered the den. She walked all the way around the chair, her hand trailing across the polished leather, then she tried to climb into the chair with him.
He pushed her leg down. “You’re too old to sit in my lap any more, honey.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Why don’t you pull up a chair and read with me?”
Irene trailed one finger lightly across the back of Myron’s hand. Cynthia didn’t like the way she did it. It made Myron uncomfortable. He pulled his hand away.
“Get yourself a chair, Irene, and join me. Don’t you have homework?” He looked up and frowned at the expression on her face. He closed his book, then looked at his watch. “You’ve got a big day tomorrow too, don’t you? Why don’t you go on to bed now?” He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, but Irene reached her arms up around his neck.
He pulled back a little bit, but she put her cheek next to his, closed her eyes.
Cynthia didn’t like it.
Irene was being naughty, she was being stupid, she was being ugly.
Cynthia was afraid Myron would begin to like the way Irene did that stuff. Cynthia was afraid Myron would love Irene more than her. She was afraid Irene would make him love her more.
Myron pulled away from Irene, took her hands from around his neck, kissed each of them, and then put them down on the arm of the chair. He opened his book again, gently but firmly dismissing her. “Good night, honey.”
“Good night, Daddy,” Irene said. She walked slowly out of the den and down the hall, not even glancing at Cynthia, but wearing a look of smug satisfaction.
Cynthia looked at Myron. Their eyes met as he looked at her over the top of his reading glasses, but Cynthia couldn’t read his expression. It was clear he’d watched Irene walk from the room. Cynthia was afraid that Irene was right when she said that Myron loved her more.
Cynthia looked at Joseph through the muddied glass. “Our stepfather was black. He was a doctor with the Department of Public Health. He and my mom died in a small airplane crash just before Irene graduated from law school. You know all that.” She found it awkward to speak about Myron. “I loved him.
He was really good to us. To Mom. He saved us. He was good to all of us.”
“What about Irene?” Joseph asked.
Cynthia shrugged, chewed on a nail. What did she know about what Irene felt? What did she care? She and Irene were like two different orders of the same species of animal. Or two different species. Cynthia had no idea what Irene thought or felt about Myron or anything else. And she didn’t care. “I think she hated him,” she was surprised to hear herself say.
Chapter 12
Joseph pushed his recliner back and clicked off the high intensity reading lamp. He took a sip of his scotch, then set the glass down and folded his hands over his chest.
Faint light from the streetlight outside slatted on the wall in front of him, filtered by the vertical blinds.
“Our stepfather was black,” Cynthia had said. What a world of information right there. Joseph had known Myron was black, of course, but he’d been looking for something more from Cynthia. Maybe there wasn’t anything more. Two little girls looking for their daddy in all the wrong places. Joseph would love to have met Myron, but he had died a few years before Joseph met Irene.
Myron, a black man, had married a white woman and raised her two little blonde daughters. Joseph wondered what a skilled, educated, professional physician would find in a poor white woman and her two barefoot, lice-ridden daughters. Someone to save, perhaps.
Hard to say why people choose the mates they do.
White women.
Joseph dated white girls in college. After college, he dated black women for a time, but they were way too wrapped up in a culture that was foreign to him. His was a white world.
So he went back to white women.
He met Irene Nottingham when he’d become discouraged with dating. It seemed as though white women dated him for a couple of very particular reasons. Sometimes it was to prove their independence to their parents, a concept only too familiar to him. Sometimes it was to prove their individuality to their friends. Sometimes it was an experiment—they were eager to find out if the rumors about Negroid genitalia were true.
Ever the optimist, Joseph kept trying, but it was becoming more and more difficult to muster up any enthusiasm for meeting and getting to know women at all. He seemed to be caught between two factions, neither of them satisfactory.
Then he met Irene. His attraction for her was so strong he sometimes had a hard time breathing when they were in the same room. He had to keep reminding himself to breathe, and when she spoke to him, he was amazed to discover that he could talk. He felt bigger than life, too obvious, too loud, too pretentious.
Too black.
It was the first time he felt his color as if it had been applied with a paintbrush.
Irene was friendly toward him, but she didn’t exhibit any of the clearly-focused signals that said she was interested in more than a professional relationship.
Even when he invited her out for a drink.
She accepted, and she brought her sister.
Cynthia was instantly attracted to Joseph. She flew out of her shell and inundated him with all the positive signals.
Irene watched with amusement, her perfectly manicured hands holding her cocktail glass in a way of casual elegance that Joseph appreciated.
Cynthia was a good woman, malleable and teachable. Joseph was approaching early middle age; he thought it was time he settled down. It was time to begin to think of a family. Cynthia was right on track there. She was beautiful and funny. She would make a good, ornamental companion at professional conferences, she was witty and conversationally alert, her genes would mix delightfully with his for some gorgeous children, and she was everything he imagined he wanted in bed. She’d make a good mate, wife and mother.
And she was inextricably linked with Irene Nottingham.
He could do worse.
They dated for three months, then Joseph succumbed to Cynthia’s ostentatious fairy tale wedding plans. They spent a glorious week honeymooning in the Empress Hotel on Vancouver Island. Joseph had never been happier. His life was a dream come true.
For the first year, everything went smoothly. Joseph watched Cynthia. He delighted in Cynthia. She shopped, she decorated, she lunched, and she made a nice home for him.
Then, slowly the dynamic of their relationship began to change. She would do things she felt guilty about, and would apologize, and promise it would never happen again, in a little girl voice. He began to scold her, and try to direct her energies into more productive channels.
By the end of the second year, Joseph felt like he was raising a daughter instead of walking next to his life partner. She couldn’t quite stand tall next to him any more. It broke his heart.
By the end of the third year, he knew the progression was irreversible. She began to do things she knew were wrong, things that she knew would upset him, just so he... what, just so he would punish her? Instead, he weathered them with a grim line to his jaw, and when certain about the ramifications of his actions, he had Cynthia’s things packed and moved to Irene’s.
That had been three months ago. The house was still horribly empty.
He missed her chatter, he missed her happy energy, he missed her. The house was gray and lonely without her in it.
He spent far more time than was healthy, just sitting in this black leather recliner that Cynthia bought him for his birthday, thinking about the past few years and what he’d done wrong. Had he missed the warning lights before they were married? Could he have avoided this progression, or had it been inevitable? A relationship doesn’t go sour, or become dependent, all by itself. It takes both parties to make it bad. What had been his role?
Amazing, how he could see other peoples’ problems with the crystal clarity of a well-trained professional, but looking at his own failings was like peering through a dozen layers of warped, smoked glass.
The phone rang, startling Joseph out of a semi-doze, where he was churning the same impotent questions over and over again.
Moving little more than one hand, he picked up the phone.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Joseph, it’s Owen Crowell.”
“Owen.”
“Joseph, I’m sitting here with a record of Irene’s court appearances, and I’ve jotted down the dates where she won her cases. In order to corroborate Cynthia’s claim, I need to have her travel records. I’m not in a position to subpoena them yet, but I’ve got to know if she did indeed travel out of town, and where she went and what she did, if you get my drift.”
“Yes.”
“Can you get me her credit card records?”
“Credit cards...” Joseph’s mind was spinning. How in the hell would he get Irene’s credit card records? He was a community college administrator, for God’s sake, not a spy.
“We don’t have much time, Joseph. Cynthia’s being moved to Los Angeles.”
“Moved? To Los Angeles?” Joseph wasn’t sure he understood the ramifications of that.
“I can hold the extradition off for maybe a week, maximum. Then it’s out of my hands. Then everything is out of my hands. If I’m going to go before the grand jury with anything, Joseph, it has to be within a week.”
“Credit card records,” Joseph said.
“You all right?”
Joseph righted the recliner. He hoped he could think more clearly in an upright position. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just trying to think how I could get my hands on Irene’s credit card records.”
“It’s crucial,” Owen said.
“Okay. I’ll see what I can do. I’ll try.” That sounded pitifully weak. “I’ll get them,” Joseph said.
Joseph hung up the phone, wondering how he could have possibly agreed to such a thing. He picked up his watery scotch and took a hefty sip, then set the glass down again. What could he have been thinking? He couldn’t get Irene’s private financial records. He couldn’t ask for them; he couldn’t steal them.
No. No way. He said he’d help Cynthia, and he did. He hunted down those
guys and took pictures of their scars. That was as far as he was going to go. The rest was up to the police. Or the DA’s office. He didn’t care. He would not spy on Irene.
Just when he decided to call Owen Crowell and tell him to get the damned records hisownself, the phone rang. Good, Joseph thought. I can tell him right now.
He picked up the phone.
“Joseph?” It wasn’t Owen Crowell’s voice at all.
“Yes?” He clicked on the light. It took him a moment to recognize her voice. “Irene?”
“Joseph, I could use your help on Cynthia’s case.”
“Of course,” he said, and guilt flowed through him. He felt like a traitor. He’d spied on her and then he’d had vivid, sexual fantasies about her. Both of those things were wrong, they were not the mark of a loyal friend, they were not what family members did with each other, and he’d die a million deaths if she ever discovered either of those things. “Whatever you need,” he said.
“Tonight?”
Joseph looked at his watch. God help me, he thought. It was eight o’clock. “I’ll be right over,” he said.
~~~
The fact that she wore no bra under her t-shirt was the first thing Joseph noticed when Irene opened the door. She wore big horn rimmed glasses, pink sweatpants and a gray t-shirt with no bra. No makeup either, and Joseph had never seen her look lovelier. She opened the door with a pencil in one hand, and a glass of wine in the other. They had a brief hug, then Joseph followed her into the living room.
A half-empty bottle of wine stood on the glass-topped coffee table, gory photos of a bloody crime scene littered the floor around the couch, and bed pillows were frumped up in a little nest in the corner of the couch where Irene had been sitting.
Joseph took off his jacket and sat at the other end of the couch. Irene brought him a glass and poured wine into it. “All the evidence they have is circumstantial,” she said.
“Is that good enough?” He sipped the wine. It was good. Expensive.
“Sure. People have been convicted on less. But she didn’t do it. I know it and you know it, so what I need from you—” she flopped down onto the couch and picked up her legal pad— “is a psychological profile of the person who did this.”
Black Leather Page 10