Twenty-One

Damn my Presbyterian work ethic! Or maybe, more honestly, damn my lack of belief that I could make a living as one of the therapists in such a therapist-stuffed town as Cuento! When a woman had phoned in sobs asking if I could do an eight o’clock appointment on Monday morning, I should have told her I kept banker’s hours and could squeeze her in at ten for a consideration. I shouldn’t even have had to call them banker’s hours. They were just civilised hours, in my opinion. Eight o’clock was breakfast time. But here, where everyone hit the gym before five, eight o’clock on a Monday morning saw the week already curling up round the edges.

Here she was, wringing a hanky in her hands on my back porch. I was on the phone to Todd, so I lowered my voice.

“You can go without me,” I said. “I can’t stop you. On the other hand, if you take me, I’ll soak up some of Mike’s … ”

“Bile?” said Todd. “Why are you whispering?”

“There’s a client outside waiting.”

“And what’s that clacking noise?”

“I’m peeking through the blinds at her. She’s crying.”

“So? You’re used to that, aren’t you?”

“I was,” I said. “I’ve forgotten, these last few months, what it’s like to talk to people in acute distress. But this is some acutely acute distress. She’s not just weeping. She’s blowing snot bubbles and honking like a goose. I better go.”

“Tell her she should have started therapy back when you’d have laughed at her and she might have avoided this,” Todd said. “I’ll see you at lunchtime.”

“What are you going to do this morning if you’re saving Mike to share with me?”

“I’m going up to the hospital.”

“Great!” I said, loud enough to let the snottery woman on my porch know I was there. I waved in case she could see me.

“Not to work,” said Todd coldly. “Not even to take a meeting about work. To see John Worth, in case he’s conscious again and feeling chatty.”

“Good idea,” I said. “You could always stop by, though.”

Todd hung up without saying more. I was on his side about the whole work thing, much as he never seemed to see it that way. He was an anaesthetist with cleptoparasitosis, a big scary word, but one that rendered him equal to a clown who was scared of needles or a teacher who didn’t like airports. In other words, absolutely fine. Operating theatres were famously insect-free. And Todd wasn’t so far gone that he didn’t know that. The trouble was, cleptoparasitosis was a psychiatric diagnosis, and when the hospital’s lawyers had heard those two big scary words, Todd was out on his bum sooner than they could say mad bug dude who’ll ruin us all. Words of one syllable each, but terrifying.

I switched my phone to silent and went out the back door where my eight o’clock—this country!—was waiting.

“Hiya,” I said, with a big smile on my face. “Dorian?”

“Lexy, right?” she said. “Thank you for seeing me.”

“Of course,” I said. “Come in. Make yourself comfortable. We’ve got some stuff I need to do, I’m afraid, but it won’t take long.”

It took longer than a therapeutic hour (aka fifty minutes) had to spare, mind you. I got her signature on a sheaf of papers, told her all about how I wasn’t affiliated with any HMOs or insurance companies but she should check her own policy for possible reimbursements, and finished up with the required spiel about why and when I’d suspend confidentiality and call the cops on her. That bit’s usually no more than awkward but this woman paled, swallowed, stopped crying, which was a bright side, and said in a wavery voice, “What do you mean by harm?”

I blinked. No one had asked me what past incidents of harm to a child, elder, or vulnerable adult or threat of future harm to self or others meant. I assumed they all knew better than me.

I glanced at my phone all the way over there on the windowsill out of the way and wished it was closer.

“But what counts as a child?” she said. “Or a vulnerable adult? Is it eighteen? Twenty-one? Vulnerable how?”

I stared at her, trying not to make it seem like I was staring at her. Which was it? Had she hurt a child? Or was she planning to shove someone off a bridge? Or, much more likely, was she simply very anxious and trying to parse my words for no pressing reason.

“Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?” I said. “And then we can take it from there.”

She folded her mangled hanky into a tiny little square, then pressed it into her palm and made a fist around it. “But if I tell you what’s wrong and you decide it’s harm and it’s a child, you’ll report me.”

“Have you assaulted a minor?” I said.

“No.”

“Or a senior? Have you withheld food, drink, warmth, or shelter from a frail relative?”

“No!”

“Well, that’s that sorted out then at least. Are you planning to kill yourself?”

“No.”

“Or someone else?”

“Probably not,” she said. “But I see what you mean. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I can talk now?”

“You can talk now.”

She took a huge heave-ho of a breath. “I think my daughter’s turning tricks.”

“That is not where I thought we were going,” I said. “That must be terribly upsetting. But it’s not something that triggers the suspension of confidentiality. You can rest assured on that score. Tell me about it, if you’d like to.”

“You see, I thought when you said child that she is my child, and when you said harm well I think that is harm. Serious harm. I can hardly believe it and I can’t tell my husband. It would kill him. That’s what I meant about not being sure if I was going to kill someone, you know? Because if I told him, this would surely kill him. She’s his little girl. His baby girl. He adores her. And now she’s … selling herself like some low-life.”

I nodded and kept my thoughts to myself. Thoughts like: all that daddy’s girl crap didn’t strike me as adorable or even that much at odds with the kid’s plunge into poor choices. Thoughts like: low-life was subjective.

“So what makes you suspicious?” I said.

“She’s hiding something,” Dorian told me. “And she has all this money.”

“But she might not be a tom—tart—pros—sex worker,” I said. “It could be … all sorts of things.” Drugs, I was thinking. Or a bank heist.

“I suppose she might have knocked over a bank,” said Dorian. “She’s a bold girl. But she’s not tech-savvy. She couldn’t run an online scam to save her life.”

I was going to have to say it. “Drugs?”

“No way. She’s outdoorsy. Ever since she was a little girl. That’s why she came back to Cuento for college. Because of the mountains. And the lakes. And all the facilities. She’s a bit of a health nut, if I’m honest. If my husband and I have a bottle of wine on a Friday night she’s on the phone to Al-Anon. Practically.”

“Well, but if she is such a health nut,” I said. I was warming to Dorian. That was my kind of talk. Most people round here would have said honours herself through her choices. “I mean, sex work isn’t the healthiest way to live, by and large.”

But saying it right out like that had tipped Dorian over the edge again. She shook out the wadded up hanky—which I could tell had no absorbency left from the way it flapped like a damp flannel—and buried her face in it.

“How long has it been going on?” I said. “Does she live with you? Or how did your suspicions first get raised?”

“No, she doesn’t,” Dorian said. “I come from Cuento, but I moved to Colorado when I married. I still have family here. When my daughter came back here, I was happy! I thought she’d have relatives to look out for her! But then I saw this big deposit in her account and when I asked her about it, she wouldn’t tell me where it had come from.”

“Hang on,” I said. “You saw a transaction in her account? How did you manage that? Are you a guarantor?”

“She’s my daughter!” Dorian said. “We have no secrets.”

“Right,” I said. “Okay. So you have the passwords to each other’s accounts. Okay. That’s nice.”

She was squirming. “She can’t get into my account,” she said. “Why would she need to?”

“Right,” I said again. “But in a way it’s good that she dumped the cash in her account, isn’t it? I mean, if she had anything to hide, she would have hidden it.”

“Well,” Dorian said. She was squirming even harder now. She got up and went to put her hanky in the bin. Then she went all the way over to the other side of the room to get a fresh one, even though there are boxes of the things everywhere. “She didn’t know I could see in there. She found out when I called her to ask where the five hundred dollars came from.”

“Five hundred?” I said, briefly thinking I was in the wrong business.

“Twice,” her mother said. “And she wouldn’t tell me where it came from. All she said was that I would regret knowing and she didn’t want to see the way I would look at her if she told me. So I got on a plane and came right out here. As anyone would. But face-to-face it was even worse. She was crying and begging me to stop asking. She said she was ashamed and she didn’t know what had gotten into her. But she won’t tell me!”

“Right,” I said. “Okay. Well now, Dorian, I’m going to say something now you might not like. But it’s absolutely what I believe and I think it will help you.”

Telling her to calm down, back off, apologise to her daughter for invasion of privacy, and learn some relaxation techniques went down about as well as a shot of lye in a latte. I had never before tried to ground a helicopter parent and confiscate her licence to fly. It was interesting, but by the time I was finished, I was nearly looking forward to Mike in comparison.

“When are you going back to Colorado?” I said.

“When this is straightened out!” she told me. “I bought an open ticket and rented a car on a renewable daily deal.”

Where did these people get all their money? Not from working, presumably, or else where did they get all their time? Cutting to the chase, I agreed to see her again, with her daughter in tow, in the middle of the week.

“You are all crazy,” I said to Todd, as we headed down the street to the cop shop. We were on foot. You have to make the most of the days that aren’t too hot to bear in Cuento. Today was a pleasant sort of a light jumper and cleverly wound scarf kind of a day, maybe shading into a cute wooly cap and mittens later when the sun went down. Needless to say, Todd had a quilted coat on that reached from his neck to his knees and had put down the earflaps on his skiing hat. But he agreed that a stealthy approach was best.

“Who all?” he said.

“Who do you think? Americans.”

“Ah, the honeymoon’s over,” said Todd. “I remember when you loved us.”

“Win me back,” I said. “Apply some of that can-do spirit and entrepreneurial vim and win me back again.”

“Meh, maybe later,” said Todd. He knew I didn’t mean it. And to be fair, offering counselling and therapy isn’t the classic way to meet the balanced portion of any population. I cast my mind over the people I knew best. Noleen was Mrs. Average apart from the aggression. Roger was as normal as they come. Della and Diego could have starred in adverts for breakfast cereal. Mike was … Nah, Mike was nuts. And here we were asking the dispatcher if she was available for us to talk to. Who knew where this would end?

Mike came out to the front reception area and stood chewing her lip and treating first me, then Todd, then me again to long speculative looks.

“Come on back,” she said at last, buzzing us through to where the interview rooms lay. “Get you anything from the machine?”

I snorted. I had exhausted the menu of drinks from the Cuento cop shop long ago and they all tasted like they’d been swallowed once already. The chicken soup, twice.

“No really,” Mike said. “We’ve got a matcha and a chai in there now. Not bad as far as vending machines go.”

We chose one each, for research purposes. Mike edged back in with two cups and handed them over. I took a sip.

The closest I can get to describing it is to say if someone boiled spinach, then used the water to wash out those bootees dogs wear in icy weather, let it cool to tepid, then poured it into a cup with some cheese, they’d end up with a treat compared to the Cuento City Police instant matcha.

“It’s something else, isn’t it?” Mike said. “It’s the eighth wonder of the world. So what can I do for you?”

“It’s about Tam,” I said. “Thomas Shatner.”

“Oh yeah?” said Mike. “Well, that case is juuuust about closed. A few Ts to cross and Is to dot. But pretty much closed.”

“Good,” I said. “Is there a suspect in custody?”

“No,” said Mike. “Why don’t I ask the questions?”

“Good plan,” said Todd. “Is that because you think it was John Worth and he’s still in ICU?”

“How do you know John Worth is in the ICU?” said Mike.

“Have you been back to his house?” I said. “If Becky’s staying by his bedside, she might not have found the bin bag on the porch. There’s a bin bag on the porch with a Halloween costume in it, including a hat the same as the one that was on Tam’s head when you pulled him out of the slough.”

Mike nodded. I had no idea if she knew all this already; cops are spectacular at looking unsurprised no matter what you tell them. “Like I said, how about if I ask the questions?”

“Agreed,” I said. “Do you know about the real estate deal?”

“What real estate deal is this?” she said.

“Tam was back in Cuento to buy a plot of land,” said Todd. “The plot of land where we found the cutty sark that your colleague didn’t seem all that interested in.”

“Which is also the place where the class of sixty-eight gathered after their high school graduation, on the last night that Tam Shatner and Patti Ortiz were ever seen in Cuento.”

Unless I was very much mistaken, cop rules or no cop rules, Mike’s eyelids did give a tiny feather of a lift at some bit of that.

“The Armour homestead?” Mike said. “Someone’s yanking your chain. It’s not for sale.”

“Really?” I said. “Or … someone was yanking Tam’s chain to lure him back here. It’s listed by Mo Tafoya, by the way. Worth checking out.”

“Checked,” said Mike. She spat the word through her teeth. “You don’t need to worry that we’ve missed something, Ms. Campbell. We didn’t miss anything.”

“You missed the class ring,” I said.

And again Mike’s face registered some tiny outward sign of inner thoughts. This time it was a squinching down rather than a flaring up, but it was there.

“So who have you pegged?” Todd said. “If not John Worth or Mo Tafoya, how about Mo Heedles? Or Joan Lampeter?”

“How the hell did you get those names?” Mike said. “Is there a leak in my stationhouse?”

“You mean we’re right?” I said.

“No,” she said. “You’re wrong.”

We waited.

“Well?” said Todd at last. “Are you going to tell us or do we need to wait for the Voyager app to update?”

Mike took a long time considering whether to say any more. “I guess I owe you for the drinks,” she concluded at last, pointing to the brimming cups of wrongness on the metal table. “We took a long hard look at all of those gals. And there’s nothing. We got their phone records—nada. Their financials—nada.”

“No transactions at Evangeline’s Costume Mansion?” I said.

“No! Jesus,” said Mike. “None.”

“So who was it then?” said Todd.

“It was suicide.”

“Suicide,” Todd repeated. “Thomas Shatner stapled a hat to his head and killed himself?”

“Yes,” said Mike. “It’s unusual to staple a hat to your own head, but he was full of drugs. He probably never felt a thing.”

“You’re serious?” I said. “You’re seriously serious? Suicide? Why?”

“Because he hated them all and wanted to spoil the reunion,” Mike said. “He was one twisted individual.”

“But dedicated,” said Todd. “Taking his life to wreck a party.”

“No,” Mike said. “He was suicidal anyway. But he chose to come back here and do it at the reunion to wreck everyone’s happiness. A real prince.”

I nodded, thinking. What she was saying was arse gravy of the first order, but her take on Tam overall sounded sincere.

“And why the hat?” I said.

Mike nodded, also thinking. Thinking what she could serve up that I would swallow, I reckoned. “That’s what clinched it,” she went for in the end. “He knew what the theme was. For the porches. Of the alumni.”

I chewed that over for a bit. Could I swallow it without choking?

“Look,” Mike said, leaning to one side and easing her phone out of her hip pocket.

I leaned forward and Todd leaned in and we both looked. There was Mo Heedles’s porch with the rocking chair occupied. There was Mo Tafoya’s porch in the next shot, just the bobble on top of the hat on top of the Jimmy wig showing. Then came the extravagant wraparound porch of the Worths’ house and another be-tartaned zombie, followed by a house I didn’t recognise at all, except for the outfit on the dummy propped on the deckchair beside the front door.

“Just the four?” I said.

“Yeahhh,” said Mike. “Not much of a success rate for the alumnus committee.”

“Well, it’s thankless, isn’t it?” I said. “Committee work.”

“Even without suicidal weirdos wrecking everything,” Mike agreed.

“So he shot himself in the belly, standing on the banks of the slough, dressed in a Jimmy wig, hoping he’d get some of his classmates in trouble?” I said.

Todd said nothing. His eyes were closed as if this was a séance and he was Madam Zelda, communing.

“Yes,” said Mike. Well, she had to, I supposed. I wasn’t supposed to know the bullet wound was fake, since I wasn’t supposed to have found out the autopsy results via Roger and his pathologist stalker. Ditto the hypostasis and other evidence of how he’d spent his first four dead days.

“And—just one last thing,” I said. “What happened to his class ring?”

“Oh that,” said Mike. “We found it.”

Todd opened his eyes. I opened mine as wide as they would go.

“We do take notice of what witnesses tell us, Ms. Campbell,” she said. “We sent a diver back down to search more thoroughly and he found it.”

“When was this?” I said. “I didn’t see anyone.”

“No,” said Mike. “You were out. We were glad we didn’t disturb you.”