Deaths of Jocasta (18 page)

Cordelia gave me a quick smile, then a shrug, and went into the clinic. I headed down the hall, checking doors to see if any locks had been tampered with or if anything looked out of place. Nothing. I turned and headed to the back of the building, rechecking to see if I had missed anything. Still nothing.

I walked to the back door and looked out at the overgrown lot behind the clinic. Someone could hide for days in that and not be found.

Then I noticed that the door to the basement was open. The lock was lying on the floor. The door that I had so carefully closed and semi-locked this morning. I turned on the light and went down the stairs. The basement, ill-lit in daylight, was now worthy of a Vincent Price movie.

“Nothing down here but a vicious gang of killer rats,” I said out loud, noting silently that Joanne was certainly right, whoever I had seen was long gone.

I ventured from the stairs to the first pool of light. The basement appeared as barren as it had this morning. Dampness and dirt, a pervasive moldy smell. Hardly threatening. I walked on to the next pool of light.

The only person foolish enough to go into this basement is you, I told myself, seeing only more dirt and undisturbed spiderwebs. Then why was the door open? Any number of reasons came to mind. The killer rats may have decided to move into a better neighborhood, for example. Maybe my foot person opened it looking for a way out. Maybe even hightailed it out one of those rotten windows. But he (or perhaps she, I couldn’t be sure) certainly hadn’t left a plethora of clues in this dismal basement.

It was not likely that whoever broke in had anything to do with the letters. Probably someone trying to steal drugs from the clinic.

There were even fewer lights in this part of the basement. The next one was a good thirty feet away.

Then I noticed some loose soil lying on the hard-packed dirt floor. Odd, I thought, freshly turned from the feel of it. Perhaps the killer rats were digging their way out.

I continued to the next light.

As I got to it, something beyond it caught my eye. A lighter shape against the dark dirt. A piece of paper, perhaps?

I headed toward it, leaving the light behind, losing the object several times in my shadow. The damp and the darkness seemed to be enshrouding me the farther I got from the light. This basement badly needs to be aired out, I thought, as the fetid smell of the dampness assaulted my nose.

Then I recognized what I was walking toward. And realized that what I was smelling wasn’t the moist air of a basement.

I stopped, the hand pale against the dark earth, outstretched and grasping for me. Just as the other one had been.

Only the arm from the elbow down was visible, the rest of the body hidden by one of the thick brick supports. It was covered in dirt as if some hasty attempt at burial had been made. The hand seemed to be reaching out of its hurried grave.

I turned my head away, took a quick gasp of air, and forced myself to go closer, circling around to see what lay behind the column.

She was splattered with dirt, shoved in a trough that was impossibly shallow for her. Her eyes were open and staring, mercifully oblivious to the inadequacy of the earth at covering her nakedness. For she had no clothes, nor jewelry, nothing to mark who she was and how she had come to be left here.

I felt my lungs burn, begging for a breath. I was reluctant to take in the decayed air.

She wasn’t here this morning, I suddenly thought. I would have seen her. She hasn’t been here rotting for days and days.

I let my breath out. And was assaulted with the smell of putrefaction. The dank air of the cellar seemed to amplify the stench of her decomposition. I gagged. Then I ran, to get away from the reach of her hand and the long grasp of decay. The pools of light seemed distant, hidden by shadows and their horrifying secrets.

Finally reaching the stairs, I bolted up them, taking two at a time, stumbling into the clear air of the hallway. For a moment, I just leaned against the nearest wall, purging my lungs of the foul air. Then I shook myself, abashed at my panic.

Cordelia came out of the clinic.

“Micky, what’s wrong?” she said when she saw me.

“Where’s Joanne?” I answered.

“I don’t know,” she replied, coming over to me. “What’s wrong?” she repeated, putting a hand on my shoulder.

“We’re going to need to call the police,” I said, trying to think what to do. Joanne will know, I thought.

“Why? What’s missing?” Cordelia asked.

“Nothing…there’s another one,” I finished, so softly she had to lean in to hear.

“Another…oh, my God!” She shook her head as if in disbelief, then pulled me to her, holding me.

“Am I interrupting something?” Joanne said, descending the stairs.

“I wish to hell you were,” I replied. We broke our embrace.

Cordelia turned to Joanne, still keeping an arm around my shoulder.

“There’s a body in the basement,” I stated matter-of-factly, steadied by Cordelia’s arm.

“What?” Joanne exclaimed. “Are you sure?”

I nodded.

“Can you show me?” she continued.

“Yeah. You might want a flashlight,” I answered.
And a handkerchief soaked with something potent.

“I’ll get one,” Cordelia volunteered. She dropped her arm and went to get the light.

“How did a body get in the basement?” Joanne asked angrily.

“I don’t know.”

“It doesn’t matter. We need to call the police, the local precinct.”

Cordelia returned with the flashlight.

We went back down into the basement. I led the way, my steps slowing as we left the last pool of light behind. I covered my nose with my hand, even before we were close enough to smell the stench.

“There,” I said, pointing to the ghostly arm, still reaching into nothingness.

Joanne and Cordelia both went past me. I reluctantly followed them, unwilling to hang back in the dim shadows.

“Goddamn it!” Joanne’s voice rang angrily as she saw the naked young woman where death had carelessly flung her.

“She can’t be twenty,” Cordelia said, her voice soft after Joanne’s rage. Cordelia knelt beside the young woman, uselessly feeling for a pulse. She stood up, backing away and shaking her head. She almost ran into me, jumping when I put my hand on her back to stop her. She stayed next to me; I left my hand gently resting on her back. Cordelia continued, “She’s been dead for at least a day or two. Putrefaction is already beginning, you can tell by the green staining in the flanks and…” My hand jerked as Cordelia spoke; these were things I didn’t want to know. “But I’m not a pathologist,” she finished, “I’ll leave her to the experts.”

“Shit,” Joanne said, her expression tight and angry. “Out of here,” she added, turning away from the body.

No one spoke as we left the basement.

“Where’s a phone?” Joanne said as we got to the top of the stairs.

“This way,” Cordelia replied, heading for the clinic.

I didn’t move, as if motion were useless, but Joanne grabbed my hand and led me into the clinic. Still holding my hand, she picked up the receiver and punched in a number she obviously knew. She was brief and to the point. The police would be here in a few minutes.

“Anyone want coffee?” Cordelia asked when Joanne hung up.

“Yeah,” she replied, letting go of my hand, then adding, “I’ll get yours,” to me.

I sat down on the couch in the waiting room. Cordelia lowered herself into a chair opposite me. She took a sip of her coffee, then burst out, “How does a dead body get in our basement?”

“I don’t know,” I replied again.

Joanne handed me my coffee, then sat down beside me.

“This isn’t going to be fun,” she said. “Particularly for you,” she added, looking at Cordelia.

Cordelia nodded.

“Anyone here with you?” Joanne asked her.

“Well…I sent Betty home when we were finished with the last patient. I guess around nine.”

“So you’ve been here alone since then?”

“Joanne, what are you implying?” I cut in.

“I didn’t kill her,” Cordelia said.

Joanne looked at her.

“I know that,” Joanne said, her tone softening. “I do. But you’re going to be asked these questions and a lot more. You might want to call your lawyer.”

“I didn’t kill her,” Cordelia repeated.

There was a loud banging on the front door. Joanne got up.

“I’m sorry,” she said, still looking at Cordelia. “I’ll do what I can.” Then she went to open the door.

I looked at Cordelia. She was staring fixedly at the floor. Then she looked up at me.

“I know you didn’t…I’ll do everything I can,” I said.

“They can’t hang you if you’re innocent,” she replied and smiled weakly.

We heard the heavy tramp of footsteps coming up the hallway. A policeman entered the waiting room. He started taking down basic information, names, addresses, etc. The rest of the footsteps went down into the basement.

We sat silently after the policeman finished his questions, unable to talk because of his presence. After about half an hour or so, Joanne joined us. She just shrugged her shoulders, then went and sat down at the far end of the room.

I got up and paced, making the policeman watch me. I finally got tired of his staring eyes and sat back down. Joanne sat still, tension evident only in the constant motion of her fingers. Cordelia couldn’t seem to get comfortable, changing position every few minutes.

Finally, a middle-aged man in a rumpled brown suit came in. He was followed by two other men, one in uniform, one not. He looked at us, then calmly fixed himself a cup of coffee.

“So, O’Connor, what’s the story?” Joanne asked, breaking the tension.

“I’m sorry,” the man said, turning to her. “I’ve forgotten your name. Joanne…uh…?”

“Detective Sergeant Joanne Ranson,” Joanne supplied evenly. She handed him her identification. He grunted and barely glanced at it, tossing it back to her. He was making clear whose territory it was.

He turned to me. “Michele Anti-gone Knight,” he read off the policeman’s notes.

“Antigone,” I corrected.

“Antigone,” he repeated. “Now, what kind of name is that?”

“Greek.”

“Greek, huh? So your daddy was Greek?” He was toying with me.

“No,” I answered. “My mother was Greek. My daddy read Sophocles.”

He grunted in reply.

“Now, Miss Greek Knight, what were you doing here?”

“I saw a light on. I investigated.”

“Just like that? You just wandered by and saw a light on?” he asked sarcastically.

“I’m a private investigator.”

“Now, why would a pretty little girl like you do work like that?” he goaded me.

I started to make an angry retort, but I realized that that was what he was trying to get me to do. I calmed myself down enough to tell him, in a terse monotone, what I was doing here. I mentioned the letters and the phone calls, hoping he would connect them to the dead woman, or at least see the possibility of a connection.

His now familiar grunt was the only response when I finished. He went and refilled his coffee cup.

“You and Detective Sergeant Ranson just happened to show up here at the same time, huh?” he said, looking at both of us to let us know how likely he believed that to be.

“Ms. Knight and I know each other socially,” Joanne supplied, her voice cool and professional. “We had dinner and Michele told me about this case. I expressed interest and we drove by. You know the rest.”

“But that’s the problem. I don’t. I don’t know how a dead woman got in the basement.” He was pacing the room now, putting on a show, I suspected. “I don’t know why that dead woman was there. There’s a lot I don’t know.” Then he stopped directly in front of Cordelia. “Perhaps you can tell me, Dr. James.”

“I don’t know,” Cordelia answered.

“You don’t know? The name Beverly Sue Morris doesn’t ring a bell with you?”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Oh, I see. You have a lot of patients here. Day in, day out. I guess it’s hard to remember just one.”

“I’m good at remembering my patients. I don’t remember her,” Cordelia replied.

“We found her purse buried in a corner, Dr. James. In that purse we found one of those little cards. A doctor’s appointment card. An appointment for last Friday at three p.m. With a Dr. C. James. That you?”

“Yes, but…she wasn’t here on Friday.”

“You’re sure?” O’Connor demanded.

“Yes.”

“Positive?”

“Yes. Positive.”

“If you didn’t perform an abortion on Miss Beverly Sue Morris, on Friday at three, then why was there a receipt and a filled out and signed, by you, insurance form in her purse? Now why do you suppose that poor Miss Beverly Sue Morris paid for an abortion she never had?”

Cordelia looked stunned.

“There’s got to be a mistake…” she finally said.