Doctors of Darkness Boxed Set

by Ellery A Kane

  She nodded, playing along as if she didn’t notice he’d changed the subject. Pop.

  ****

  Ava sat across from the prick himself, Dr. Chuck Whitlock, her clinical supervisor at New Beginnings Inc.

  “So, Doctor Lawson, how are things?” He always began supervision with the same inane question. The same tug on his beard. The same infuriating smirk.

  “Good. I think I’m making real progress with Ms. Williams. We’ve been discussing her history of sexual abuse and the way she masked her feelings of shame with methamphetamine. She read the Bradshaw book you recommended.”

  Dr. Whitlock looked impressed. With himself, no doubt. “I trust she found it useful. In my ten years of experience working with this population . . .”

  Ava tuned out, letting her mind drift to the morning. To Ian. Where else? She’d driven by his house again on the way here, even though Claremont Avenue was ten minutes out of her way. A two-story, modern white stucco with a small patch of manicured grass in front. Ian had never told her his address, but she’d found it with ease. Thank you, Google.

  “I’ll give you a chance to look it over now, if you’d like.” Dr. Whitlock waved a packet of papers in her face, oblivious to her mind-wandering.

  “Uh, alright.”

  A quick look at the heading told her what she’d missed. And her stomach clenched. Six-Month Intern Performance Review. She flipped to the second page where Dr. Whitlock had rated her skills one to five and written a short appraisal of her work. Her eyes skimmed the ratings—all fives, all exemplary—and snagged on the lone three circled next to the word professionalism.

  As she read on, Ava felt the flush creep up her neck until her cheeks burned. Dr. Lawson left her internship early on a number of occasions without my permission and without notifying staff. An astute clinician with flashes of brilliance, her commitment to her coworkers and place of employment is simply average.

  She couldn’t look at him, so she stared at his words instead. In her head, her father’s hypocritical voice played like the soundtrack to a movie she wished she hadn’t seen. You can do better, Ava Marie. I didn’t raise you to be mediocre. If you can’t be the best, why bother?

  Dr. Whitlock cleared his throat. Still, she avoided his heavy brows, his owl-like eyes magnified behind his glasses. “Questions?”

  “I only left because my work was done. I’d seen all my clients and finished my notes. I didn’t think anyone would mind.” Her voice broke at the end, and her father was right there. Don’t think those crocodile tears will get you out of this.

  “Overall, you’ve shown real promise as a therapist. The clients respond to you. That’s half the battle. But, if I can be completely honest, you’re not a team player. You’re too insular. Too aloof. If you finish your work, there’s plenty to be done around here. Plenty to learn. Remember that.”

  She forced her chin up, even though it trembled. And he regarded her the way she would a crying patient. Empathy from a distance. What would it be like to say how she really felt? Not to fall on the grenade but to launch it instead. To watch somebody else burn.

  But then, she remembered—I hate you. I wish you’d just die—she already had.

  “I’m sorry, Doctor Whitlock. I’ll do better.”

  ****

  “Fuck him.” Ian took the last swig from his third bottle of Stella and signed the check. “Too aloof, my ass. That guy is threatened by you.”

  “Why would he be threatened by me? I’m an intern.”

  “Exactly. The best intern they’ve ever had. And smarter than he ever was or could hope to be.” Ava followed when Ian stood, letting him slip his jacket over her shoulders. “Trust me. We were at Berkeley together. He was a prick then too.”

  She leaned into him, not drunk at all, but somehow tipsy with his words. The fierce way he defended her. It was intoxicating.

  “And I can’t stand that he made you cry.”

  “Not in front of him, but—”

  “It doesn’t matter. He’s an asshole.”

  Outside the door of the Pepperoni Shack, he tugged her into the alley and pushed her against the wall. Before he kissed her, before she felt the press of his body against hers, the unyielding urgency of his desire. Before she realized that it was her, that she did that to him, he whispered, “I’ve got an idea.”

  ****

  Ian kept his hand on Ava’s knee as she drove. Let it creep up her thigh, reminding her what he wanted. “Pull over here,” he said, when they were close.

  “He might not even be here. It’s past nine.”

  “He will. That loser has no valentine, Valentine.”

  And Ian was right. Dr. Whitlock’s gray Prius occupied its usual spot outside of the clinic. Ava had overheard him say that he’d planned to stay late, writing, to meet a last-minute deadline for a grant proposal.

  “Are you sure about this? What if we get caught?” Ava’s skin buzzed. Her body hummed. My dad is watching, she thought, as silly as it sounded.

  “I won’t let you get caught. Promise.” He pulled a single key from the ring in his hand, keeping the rest for himself, and gave it to her. With a kiss that tasted like tomato sauce and garlic and beer and something faintly, deliciously Ian.

  Hand in hand, they slunk down the sidewalk, giggling. Ducking behind bushes, skirting the shadows. Until finally, their keys were poised like weapons at the smooth side panel of the Prius.

  “I can’t do it,” she admitted, slipping the key into the back pocket of her jeans. She couldn’t decide what it meant. Coward or stalwart?

  “It’s okay. You be my lookout, and I’ll be your avenging angel.” Ian squeezed her hand and mouthed a question. “You with me?”

  She didn’t need to answer.

  ****

  They made out in the backseat until they were breathless. “Where’s the key I gave you?” Ian asked, his lips lingering on her collarbone.

  “In my pocket.”

  “Good. Keep it. It’s yours now.”

  She pulled away a little so she could look at him. Into his blue eyes that were more fire than ocean. “What does it open?”

  “My front door.”

  And later, he led her up the stone walk, the one she’d studied from her car. Past the mailbox. To the stairs that wound around. To the door she’d longed to be on the other side of. He let her unlock it and go in ahead of him.

  He flipped the light from behind her, and she caught her breath when she saw it spotlighted on the mantel. The massive, in-your-face wedding photo. Ian and Julie airbrushed to perfection, facing the camera, and lit from within by pure joy. Her tears came fast and hot—why am I crying?—and she felt like a child when he soothed her, hugged her from behind.

  “That’s why I didn’t want you to come here.” He breathed the words against her ear. “She’s everywhere. I hope you don’t think I’m a complete nutso. I’ve had a hard time moving on. Obviously.”

  Ava focused on Julie’s face. She knew it by heart, of course. From the internet. From the San Francisco Chronicle’s obituary notice. From the photographs, exactly five of them, that she’d saved to her desktop. Still, seeing Julie here, in the place where she’d lived and loved and died, it overwhelmed her.

  “But I want to, Ava. With you. Will you marry me?”

  The Monterey County Courier

  “No New Leads as Investigation into Brutal Slaying Reaches Third Day”

  by Jackson Lamont

  The Carmel Police Department has reached out to the public for help in solving the Valentine’s Day double homicide of Love Doctors Ian and Kate Culpepper. Police Chief Scott Morrow issued a statement Friday morning urging anyone with information regarding the crime to contact the Carmel Police Department. Information can be provided anonymously.

  “We strongly believe someone saw something that night. Even a smal
l detail could give us the break we need to find the person or persons responsible for the gruesome killing of this lovely couple.” Kate Culpepper’s family has also offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrator.

  While investigators say they have not yet ruled out robbery as a motive for the murders, there were no obvious indications that anything of value was taken from the home. Still, some residents of the affluent community where the Culpeppers resided remain fearful the attack was financially motivated. “Kate was always so generous and kind,” Tara Fairfax, a neighbor, said. “If someone showed up at the door asking for help, she wouldn’t turn them away.”

  No suspects have been publicly identified, and police officials have been tight-lipped regarding the progress of their investigation. A vigil in memory of Ian Culpepper is scheduled for Friday night at 7 p.m. at the Monterey Community College’s main campus, where he taught several classes.

  Chapter

  Eight

  Friday

  February 17, 2018

  The first time I met Detective Jack Donovan, I stole from him. My mother had just taken a job as a hostess at the Seventeenth Mile, an upscale restaurant located near the Pebble Beach Golf Course. We’d made the whole three-hundred-mile drive—LA to Carmel—in silence, with everything we owned stuffed into the back of our station wagon. Me, fuming. Her, resigned.

  That’s what happens when your husband offs himself with his service weapon. When your daughter finds the body. You accept whatever stones life throws at you—because what could be worse?—and the pissed-off glares of a surly teenager bounce off your armor like pebbles. You run like hell as far as you can.

  Now, I understand my mother’s desire to uproot. To flee. Hadn’t I done the same after all, coming back here? The only trouble—I hadn’t run far enough. But I was fifteen then. A sophomore at Carmel High. My mother was the enemy. And Detective Donovan and his badge were casualties in a war waged against her.

  I’d seen its shiny pointed edges poking out of his jacket pocket in the coat room where I sat staring at the pages of my biology textbook and waiting for Mom’s shift to end. I can’t explain why I took it, only that it called to me. I needed to touch it. To feel its cold skin, smooth between my fingers. “My badge is a talisman,” my dad had told me, before he fell apart. Before he had a reason to. “It can stop bad guys in their tracks. It can make wrong things right again.”

  So I’d slipped it into my pocket and waited to be caught. Which I was, of course. An hour or so later. I’d stood behind my mother, red-faced, while she’d done the one thing she’d sworn to me she never would. Told the detective—and his entire family—our whole sad story. I’d said nothing.

  “Your daughter probably just wanted to feel close to her dad again,” Jack had told my mother. “No harm in that.”

  Jack had patted my shoulder on the way out, absolving me, Marianne by his side. Only seven, Luke had hardly noticed, too busy mashing the buttons on his Game Boy. But Cooper was my age, and he had eyed me like a rattlesnake.

  Still does. Is. Right now.

  “Ava.” And he says my name like he’s scolding me. Like he knows I’ve done something bad again. Something far worse than pilfering that badge. Or wooing his baby brother. But at least he’s got the fire back in his eyes. “Can I help you? Luke’s not around.”

  “I know. I was hoping to talk to your dad. It’s about the murders.”

  “So now you want to talk?” His nostrils flare as he sucks in a breath, grits his teeth. “Sounds like my brother’s got a big goddamned mouth.”

  “What do you mean?” I’d planned for this. A lie without a plan is a rookie mistake. And Ian had taught me better than that. “Luke doesn’t know I’m here. And hey, are you feeling better?”

  “Save it, Ava.” Now, it’s a dirty word, a word I wrote in Ian’s blood myself. “The detective will be out in a few minutes.”

  ****

  Cooper walks me to the interview room and leaves me there with nothing more than a curt nod. I take a seat at the table, choosing one of three nondescript chairs. I fold my hands in front of me and examine the cut on my finger. I’d removed the Band-Aid in the shower this morning, exposing the scab, brown as bread crust. Nothing to hide here, Officer.

  I stare ahead at the blank white walls, the dull gray carpet. The whole room is a psychological exercise. Meant to suss out guilt. To draw it to the surface like the festering tip of a boil. I resist the pull of the two-way mirror, knowing Cooper’s probably watching from the other side. Waiting for the boil to break, for guilt to seep onto my face and run down my neck in hot, red splotches. Nothing to see here, Officer.

  Hours pass.

  Well, not really, but it seems that way. Time, weighted like a corpse and sunk to the bottom of the ocean. I’m glad I wore my father’s watch. Because I can look without being obvious. After twenty minutes, there’s a tap-tap on the door—more pronouncement than permission—and a woman enters the room. Stocky, her face bare except for a shock of red lipstick and the obligatory worry lines that come standard with being a cop. She smiles at me as if we know each other. And I like her without wanting to, already knowing she’ll use it against me.

  “Good morning, Doctor Lawson. I’m Detective Lennox, but you can call me Doreen.” She extends a strong hand with short, squat fingers. Her other hand—her left—sits atop her hip, ringless. Like mine. “Jack is finishing up some paperwork. He’ll be joining us shortly.”

  Which means he’s watching too. I casually side-eye the mirror so she knows I know. Nothing gets past me, Officer.

  She selects the chair across from me and slides it alongside the table kitty-corner to my own. Closer. Better for sharing secrets. Especially the kind you have to whisper.

  “You had something to tell us about the Culpepper murders?”

  I nod, postponing the inevitable. Once I say it, once I tell them who I am, there’s no taking it back. They already know and still the words are stuck. Lodged in my throat like a hunk of rancid meat. “I’m sorry I didn’t come in sooner. I should have. But I needed to consult an attorney. Ian asked me to sign a nondisclosure agreement following our divorce, and I—”

  “Your divorce? You and Doctor Culpepper were married?” She’s good. Too good. I almost believe she didn’t know.

  “Unfortunately, yes. We were.”

  The door behind her opens, and the air shifts. I feel fifteen again, with that badge burning a hole in my pocket. “Hello, Ava.”

  “Hi, Jack. Detective Donovan, I mean.” I shrug and smile up at him sweetly. “Sorry.”

  He drops a folder at the center of the table—bullseye—then drags the remaining chair into the corner, as far away as he can get. Leaning back, his long legs crossed at the ankles, he could be anywhere. As casual as a picnic. “It’s alright. I’ve asked Doreen to take the lead this morning, given our preexisting personal relationship.” Which is a nice way of saying I’m breaking bread with his family. Sleeping with his son.

  “So your marriage was unfortunate?” Doreen doesn’t miss a beat. But why would she? This whole dance between them is expertly choreographed. A real cha-cha-cha.

  “It didn’t start out that way. We were happy, once. After I finished my degree at Berkeley, we got married. We moved to LA, and I started a practice there. But when your husband knocks up a graduate student—his graduate student—happily ever after takes a real nosedive.”

  “Sounds like my ex. Chasing every skirt in a fifty-mile radius. They must’ve studied at the same school. You know, the one for shitty husbands.” She laughs—a real laugh. That or she’s even better than I thought. And I spot the lipstick, bright red, on her coffee-stained teeth. “You must’ve been real pissed about that. I tell ya, when I found out about Eddie, I wanted to put a bullet in the bastard myself.”

  I know where she’s going, where she’s leadi
ng me. And I play along. “Yeah, it was a difficult time. But we were divorced four years ago.”

  “And then you moved here? From LA?”

  “I wanted to start over. And we’d always talked about coming back to Carmel. Ian loved it here. The small-town charm, the ocean, the golf. But I never imagined he’d follow me.” Hadn’t I wanted him to? I’m not sure anymore.

  Jack makes a noise of disgust, mutters under his breath. “And with his pretty, young wife no less.” It stings that I can’t tell whether he’s only pretending to be on my side. He’s got those cop eyes—he’s been at it longer than Luke—calm and all-knowing. They take me in, giving nothing back. Not so different than a therapist really.

  “So why the nondisclosure thing?” Doreen asks, scrawling the letters NDA on her notepad. At the end, she adds a question mark, crooked as the road that got me here. “It’s pretty uncommon, isn’t it? He wasn’t even a Love Doctor yet.” There’s an invisible eye roll there, a silent scoff. And I smile at her.

  “Right. Well, Ian thought he was on the verge of making it big. When I found out about Kate, we were already in talks with BXA about the show. We’d filmed a pilot episode.”

  “We?”

  This is the part I’d been waiting for. The part no one knows, not even Luke. And I realize I can’t wait to say it. Finally. To hang it out in the air and let the stink off of it. “Ian and me. I was the original Mrs. Love Doctor. But as it turns out, the viewing public prefers to get their relationship advice from a blonde. With an ample chest.”

  It surprises me how much it hurts. Still. Some wounds never close because we refuse to let them. The hurt serves a purpose.

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “I wish I was. They had a focus group. I was out. And Kate was in. In the show. In my house. My bed. My whole life. Turns out Ian preferred blondes too. The NDA was a way to protect his image. How would it look if the Love Doctor himself couldn’t keep it in his pants?”

  Doreen reaches across the table and pats my hand, the way my mother would if she still remembered. “I certainly understand why you’d hate the guy.” Meaning I’ve got motive.