14

“ Who the fuck is Cheryl?”

You would think Candy was sitting on a throne upholstered in the finest silk instead of a stained and tattered chair, Bouchard thought as she studied the emaciated prostitute. Her slouched shoulders did not go with her straight back. Something else was incongruous—the necklace gleaming on Candy’s thin and wrinkled neck. The expensive, understated design spoke of good taste—not what you would expect on a woman who sold herself for drug money. Bouchard wondered what the story was behind this woman and her current lifestyle.

Candy stared back at her, eyes blank, and Bouchard answered the dull gaze with a soft smile. “When was the last time you saw Cheryl?” She shifted slightly on the worn sofa’s edge to avoid contact with fabric so stained it was reminiscent of blood splatter at a crime scene. Her first reaction was alarm, then she pushed her revulsion away. She had been educated enough to know the blemishes on the couch presented no threat. Still she wondered what other contaminants the fabric might harbor.

Candy pounded her hand on the chair’s arm. “Are both of you deaf or something? I told you I don’t know who the hell she is.” Candy blew a cloud of smoke directly at them. She tugged at the sleeve of her sweater—it was inappropriate attire for such a warm day. She was most likely trying to hide track marks on her arms. On the other hand, she might be a cutter, which is common for women with borderline personality disorder or some form of it.

Bouchard shuddered. Her best friend in college had been a cutter, and no matter how hot the day, she wore long sleeves to hide the pale scars on her arms.

Bouchard quietly studied Candy. The prostitute looked as if she were hours away from a rendezvous with the local undertaker. She pushed these thoughts aside, leaned forward, and thrust a snapshot inches from Candy’s eyes. Candy nonchalantly exhaled smoke into her face, further irritating her dry and itchy eyes. Bouchard held her ground; the photo remained poised before Candy.

Candy took the photo.

Bouchard noted Candy’s fingers shook as she struggled to grip the photo. She is strung out—probably needs a fix.

Candy ignored the attention Bouchard gave to her trembling hands and glanced at the photo, giving it no more attention than she might a spider. Then, almost as nonchalantly, she tossed it onto the nearby coffee table. The picture fell in the middle of one of the dishes coated with dried, smelly food. “Oh, her . . .”

“So you do know her. When was the last time you saw her?” Bouchard fought to quell her impatience. She was determined not to let her irritation show; she needed what this woman knew. Bouchard reached out and touched Candy’s bony hand.

Suspicious of Bouchard’s gesture of support, Candy snatched her hand away and blew more smoke into Bouchard’s face.

Bouchard refused to react to the rebuke and reached for the photograph. She placed it back in Candy’s hand.

Like a recalcitrant child, Candy bent her head to study the photo. Bouchard watched her face closely, ignoring the sores and ruined skin. Candy’s jaw tightened before she spoke. After several tension-filled moments, Candy finally said in a muted voice, “That’s Cheri.”

“And do you know the man?” Bouchard asked.

“Melvin Del Vecchio,” Candy seemed to spit rather than speak his name.

Bouchard sat backward, her clothing stuck as she slid across the surface of the couch. She decided she was going to have to buy new pants after this visit. Then her police training took command of her.

“What can you tell us about him?” Bouchard realized that she was falling into interrogator mode and came across as if she were interviewing a suspected murderer. Enright nudged her and flashed a look, warning her to soften up. Bouchard quickly returned her focus to Candy and decided to try another approach. While Candy’s language might be coarse, she might respond to softness and sensitivity. Anne believed that no woman started out to be a hooker. Turning to the streets was usually their only recourse in dealing with circumstances beyond their control. She would love to know what event or events had propelled Candy into a lifestyle that was obviously killing her. However, she knew this was not the time to answer those questions. She forced herself to stay on task, hoping to find the answers she needed. She did, however, pledge not to forget one lesson she had learned, though not as a member of the BPD: no matter what Candy did for a livelihood, she was still a person with a heart and feelings. All she had to do was find a way to reach them.

Candy picked the picture up again, gave it another cursory glance, and then flipped it onto the coffee table and placed a nicotine-stained finger on Del Vecchio’s image. “Now there’s one useless piece of shit if ever there was one.” She shook her head, paused, and then shook it again.

“Okay, all that aside,” Enright interrupted, in a soft, compassionate tone, “when was the last time you saw Cheri?”

“Must be a month or more,” Candy said. “Say, did she finally get the balls to go to the Big Apple? I’ve heard you can make some real money working Times Square.”

“We don’t know exactly where she went,” Bouchard answered.

Candy got up from the chair and stumbled across the room. She opened the top drawer of a scarred oak dresser and took out a bottle of wine. She turned, waved it in the air, and asked, “Anyone care for a drink?” When no one responded, she staggered back to her seat, tripped over the edge of the torn rug and fell into the chair.

“Candy, you need to get some help,” Enright said.

Candy snorted, the bottle of cheap wine poised before her lips. “What should I do—check into the fucking morgue early? Sweetie, I’m the walking dead. The only fun I get out of life anymore is when some horny idiot loses control and doesn’t wear a rubber . . .”

Bouchard was shocked, and it showed when she said, “Surely, you’re not working in your condition?”

Candy pulled the bottle away from her lips and glared back at Bouchard. “Why shouldn’t I? Some lowlife with a hard-on gave this to me. I’m just giving it back. As they say in AA: ‘It works; pass it on’. Well, it works for me, and that’s what I’m doing—just passing it on.”

Bouchard studied Candy as she tipped her head back and gulped down a long drink of wine. Even while drinking cheap wine like a homeless wino, Candy was, to a certain degree, poised.

Candy set the bottle aside and looked into Bouchard’s eyes. When she said, “Honey, I’m a walking one-woman AIDS epidemic,” her voice was as hard as the burn at the bottom of a pot of sauce that had been left overnight on a hot burner.

Bouchard met her challenge and stared back. She made a silent vow to call the Massachusetts Board of Health as soon as she left the apartment. The authorities had to intervene and take this bitter woman out of circulation before she could jeopardize more lives. Bouchard leaned in Candy’s direction. “Tell me about Cheri.”

Candy let out a hoarse laugh. “That kid was greener than a Granny Smith apple—a real fish.”

“What do you mean exactly?” Bouchard asked.

“She didn’t know shit—and even if she had, she’d’ve probably screwed it up.”

“Okay, I know that fish is prison slang for a new inmate. But I’m surprised you’d use that phrase, Candy, considering . . .”

“Considering the weirdo in the truck?” Candy stared back at Bouchard with wide eyes.

Bouchard was immediately struck by this turn in the conversation. She recalled Houston mentioning a truck when he told her about the incident with the paranoid hooker. She leaned forward. “Weirdo?” she repeated.

Bouchard felt Enright shift on the couch but ignored her. Bouchard was now completely engrossed with Candy’s story.

Candy pulled at a strand of her stringy hair. “Yeah, that fucking lunatic—women on the street call him the Fisherman.”

A fisherman had also come up last night; now Bouchard was really interested. She leaned yet closer to Candy without caring if her attentiveness was obvious. “Have you seen him?”

“I saw him once,” Candy picked up the wine bottle and placed it against her lips.

“What can you tell us about him?” Enright asked.

Candy swallowed and then set the bottle back down on the coffee table. “Not much. Hell, I’m not dumb enough to go with a sick bastard like that.”

“There must be something you can tell us about him, right?”

Candy shrugged her shoulders. “He drives a big truck—a refrigerator unit. He hauls fish. Obviously he lives somewhere along the shore. What the hell else am I supposed to say?”

“When did you see him, Candy?” Bouchard asked.

She shrugged and her eyes drifted up to the right. “Maybe six months ago—I don’t recall exactly. I have a hard time remembering dates, but I do remember it was cold.”

Bouchard took note of how Candy unconsciously wrapped her arms about her chest before continuing, “It was one of those nights when the wind comes off the harbor and quick-freezes everything it touches. Frankly, I’d given up on getting any action, and I’d started home. What little business there was went to the young chicks.” She suddenly stopped, seemingly lost in memories.

Bouchard lowered her voice and softly asked, “Where were you, Candy?”

“What?” A startled look came to her face, as if she had just woken up in a hospital.

“Where were you when you first saw this . . . fisherman?”

She sighed. “I can’t remember.”

Bouchard reached over and patted Candy’s hand. “Take your time, the memory will be there.”

“Shit, I know that.” Candy’s face flushed with anger. “That’s the fucking problem, isn’t it?”

Bouchard pulled back her hand and slid back onto the sofa. Enright followed her lead.

Bouchard continued to watch Candy.

Candy blurted out, “I was just past the Public Garden when this truck pulled up beside me.”

Bouchard took note of the inadvertent wrinkling of her nose. “What happened then?”

“The passenger door opened, and I looked inside.”

“But you didn’t get in?” Enright asked.

Candy’s upper body shook. “The smell was awful.” She paused and then muttered. “When I saw there was no handle on the inside of the door, I got suspicious. But that isn’t what really turned me off.”

“No? Then what did?” Bouchard asked.

“It was his eyes,” Candy murmured.

“His eyes . . . what about his eyes?”

“He isn’t right.” She tapped her head with a finger as she spoke.

“What was it about his eyes, Candy?” Bouchard repeated her question.

Candy lowered her voice and bent forward. “Have you ever seen the wild look a cornered lab rat gets?”

“I don’t think I have,” Bouchard replied. From the corner of her eye she saw Enright nod in agreement; she hadn’t either.

“Well, they flash as if there’s an insane fire in them.” Candy hesitated, a dramatic pause that drove home her point. Bouchard thought it was the practice of a skilled lecturer. “That’s how he looked.”

“I see.”

Candy shook her head. “He’d have been ugly even if his head wasn’t misshapen.”

“Misshapen?” Bouchard repeated. The word surprised her. She thought that it was a word not usually in a prostitute’s vocabulary; fucked up would have been more likely.

Candy fished out another cigarette and fumbled with her lighter. Her head bobbed as she struggled to align it with her wobbly hand. Bouchard studied her, wondering if her hands shook from the chemicals in her system or if there was something particularly troubling about recalling this incident.

Bouchard was just about to ask Candy another question when Enright piped in, “How was his head misshapen? What did it look like?”

Candy turned and this time, she blew the smoke away from them. She coughed, and phlegm popped in her throat. She coughed a second time, trying to clear the obstruction, and then spat into a soiled handkerchief. She looked at her visitors, seemed embarrassed for a second, and then said, “He has a spot on the side of his head that looked like someone had smacked it with a flat object when he was a baby.”

“I see,” Bouchard said.

Candy stretched forward, and as if she were consulting with a couple of coconspirators said, “Nothing in the world could have made me get into that truck. Believe me—” She closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair. She sat with her eyes shut for several moments. When she finally opened her eyelids, she had let down the veil that kept her secure in a secret world of her own. Tears glistened in Candy’s eyes.

What is happening here? Bouchard held back, deciding it was best to let Candy offer her own explanation.

Candy shook her head, as though she tried to clear away the alcoholic fog that clouded her mind. “I understand psychopaths, sociopaths, or antisocial personalities—use whichever term you like. They’re all the same. Although, on a professional level, I think that for this one, psychopath is most appropriate.”

Bouchard’s back stiffened. Had Candy actually spoken those words in that professional tone?

Candy ground her cigarette on one of the dirty plates that covered the end table and sprang from her chair. When she crossed the room, she walked steadier—seemed to glide rather than stumble. She stopped in front of a windowsill, leaned against it, and stared at the street.

Bouchard thought she looked as if something were sucking life from her. She also noted how thin Candy’s arms were, even though they were covered by the cylinders of faded wool that hung at either side of her shapeless body. A metamorphosis was happening—one Anne considered positive. There was a new softness and vulnerability in Candy’s sunken face.

Candy turned to her visitors and whispered in a weak and hoarse voice, “Now, I’ve got things to do.” Suddenly, the softness dropped from her face like shattered glass, and the hardness returned. As quickly as she had changed mere moments before, Candy reverted to the street-smart hooker. “There are johns to fuck—in more ways than one.” Candy let out a short laugh. To Bouchard, it did not ring true.

Candy walked to the door and opened it. Bouchard nudged Enright and slid off the couch; the interview was over. Before Bouchard could step through the open door, Candy grabbed her forearm. “There’s one other thing. I think the guy’s from Maine.”

“You’re certain?” Bouchard asked.

Candy moved her head up and down slowly. “I saw his license plate. It was a commercial plate, but it definitely said Maine.”

“Thank you,” Bouchard said. It was like she was staring at the ghost of a woman who had once been vibrant and strong.

Within seconds, Bouchard and Enright were in the hall and staring at the closed door.

“That was bizarre,” Bouchard said. “What just happened in there? I feel like I just interviewed two people.”

“You did.”

Bouchard stared at her. “Is there something you know that you haven’t told me?”

Enright looked sheepish. “Yes.”

“Out with it.”

“I didn’t say anything because I wanted you to talk with her without any preconceived biases.”

“Such as?”

“Pity, maybe even revulsion . . . I don’t know.”

“I was a cop for a long time. Believe me when I say I know better than to do that.”

“I didn’t know who was walking in here with me . . . a woman or a cop.”

Bouchard hesitated. “All right, I understand. Now tell me what you held back.”

“You met Candy the hardened, bitter prostitute, and for a moment, ever so briefly, her former self appeared.”

“What do you mean ‘her former self’?”

“Doctor Candace Littleton, professor of psychology.”

Bouchard stared at the door for a moment before she and Enright turned to go. “I’ll be damned . . .”

_________________

They sat in Enright’s car; neither seemed willing to speak. The interview with Candy still bothered Bouchard. “What could possibly happen to turn a woman with a PhD into that?”

“Love.”

“Love? Lisa, please, this is serious, and you know that sounds ridiculous.”

“Ever been in true love, Anne? The kind of love where being with someone consumes your every thought, your every action? Where you wake up thinking about that person, drift through your day lost in thoughts of him, and then in bed you stare at the empty pillow beside you and wonder why his head isn’t on it? Then, when you finally go to sleep, you dream of him.”

Bouchard thought about her relationship with Houston. They were as close as she had ever been with any man, but as much as they loved each other, their relationship certainly did not fit that description. “No, I haven’t . . .”

Enright smiled. “Well, if it helps alleviate your guilt, neither have I. However, Candace has. He was a professor, too. Unfortunately, he had a darker side. He was a very self-assured man, dominant in his field and in his personal life. When Candace fell for him, she gave over control of everything. Jeremy was not the sort to live in the shadow of a successful woman. He controlled every aspect of her life, and at first, she happily let him.”

Bouchard shook her head. She had known many women who put their lives, careers, and dreams aside for husband and family; still the concept was anathema to her. She realized how lucky she was; Houston had always treated her as equal, and in some areas—those in which he knew she excelled—acquiesced to her. “So where is this guy now?”

“He was physically abusive. Over time, he demolished Candace. She lost her self-esteem and became a shadow of what she had been.”

“You seem to know a lot about her.”

“I’ve been interested in how and why women turn to prostitution for years now. Ten years ago, when I first got out of college, she was helping me write my articles on the prostitution trade. I was looking into the psychology of the women who worked the streets. Candace really got into it. She developed a fascination with the women . . . looking back, her interest became more than just professional. It could have been a fantasy thing between her and Jeremy.”

“It sounds to me like she became a dominant man’s dream—by day a professor and by night his personal whore.”

“Something like that. I wouldn’t want to say anything definite, though. I often feel guilty for introducing her to that world.”

The afternoon had turned hot and oppressively humid; Bouchard stared out the window and watched an advancing thunderhead. “It sounds to me as if there’s more to her story. However, you still haven’t answered my question. Where is this guy now?”

“One night she realized what Jeremy was doing to her. During one of his sexual fantasies, Candace killed him.”

“Now I remember the case. I was a rookie on the force when it happened.”

“The courts absolved her by ruling the death as an accident during the throes of passion, but it was the beginning of the end for Candace. She started drinking heavily, then drugs. Eventually she lost her job and no university would consider her . . . which finally led her to the streets.”

Thunder boomed, and it began to pour. Bouchard suppressed a desire to step out into the deluge and let the rain wash away the filth of the world she lived in.