Shakespeare's Counselor (22 page)

“Nah,” I said. “Did you see how he cried when he picked her up in the parking lot after Saralynn was murdered? And the gash on his leg after he fell through the step?”

“Let's go look at their driveway,” Jack said.

We walked, because it was beautiful, and because it might make the visit look less rehearsed. But we need not have been concerned about that; no one was home at the house on Compton Street.

Up the driveway we went, as though we'd been invited. We gave a perfunctory knock to the front door, and then turned away to enact the attack of the night before.

“You be Cliff,” I told Jack. “Remember, your leg is still sore from going through the steps.” Jack pretended to emerge from the house. He limped down the front steps, and walked slowly over to where the couple parked their cars. Jack got his keys out, as someone naturally would if they expected to drive off. Then he stopped. I came up behind him as quietly as possible, but the driveway was loose gravel. Even the grass strip running between the driveway and the hedge was full of the stuff.

“I can hear you coming a mile away,” he said over his shoulder. “No way anyone snuck up on Cliff.”

Of course, if you heard someone coming up behind you when you were outside, you'd turn around to look. Anyone would. You wouldn't just keep on with what you were doing.

But I raised my hand, again pantomiming the knifing. This time, I crouched a little until I approximated Tamsin's height. I made an awkward swing, and was very close to the wound area as Carrie had described it to me. But the angle was all wrong, straight down instead of left-to-right. “That didn't work,” I told Jack, almost cheerfully.

“You know, and I know, that when someone's coming up behind you, you're going to turn around to see what they want.” Jack's face was getting grimmer and grimmer as he spoke. “And if the stabber was really determined he'd stick around and try again.”

Jack turned his back to me again. He bent his hand up behind his back as far as he could bend it. He had a pocketknife clenched in his right fist, with the end pointing down. Jack made a chopping, downward motion. The point of the knife grazed his rump in an arc from left to right. If he hadn't been careful, it would've gouged the flesh of his right hip.

It was exactly as Carrie had described the wound.

“Oh, no, Jack.” I felt almost as though I was going to cry, and I couldn't say why.

“It might not be that way,” Jack said. “But it looks like it to me.”

“So what'd he do with it?” I asked. “Put it in his pocket?”

“They'd find it at the hospital,” Jack said. He pantomimed the self-mutilation again, he put out a hand to rest on an imaginary car, and with the other he pitched his pocketknife into the depths of the hedge. Then we both got down on our hands and knees and searched, very carefully.

Jack found a splotch of dried blood in the bed of old leaves below the hedge, right after I'd retrieved his knife.

“Of course, his attacker could've thrown it in here and retrieved it later. It didn't have to be Cliff that did the tossing and retrieving,” Jack said.

I nodded. I felt about twenty years older, all in a flash. This was betrayal on a grand scale. And on an incredibly mean scale, too.

“Do you think Claude has figured this out?” Jack and I strode down the sidewalk. Jack had thrust his hands in his pockets and he was scowling. “Or do you think he's been too distracted by the upheaval in his department?”

We stopped at the next corner. Tamsin was at the stop sign facing us, and through the windshield of her car I could tell she was looking haggard. The plump and assured woman I'd met a few weeks earlier had simply vanished.

We'd finished our little experiment just in time. She waved us through the intersection, and tried to summon up a smile for us, but it failed. We nodded and kept on walking. I felt like a traitor to her. First I thought she'd been persecuting herself, and now I suspected her husband was her tormentor.

“We have to go talk to Claude,” I said.

Jack nodded unenthusiastically. Neither of us is happy in a police station. Since my ordeal, I'd become shy of the police, who were first to initiate me into the range of human reactions to my victimization that I now knew so well. And Jack is still ostracized by some cops for his involvement in the scandal that led to his leaving the force in Memphis.

Claude was in and willing to see us. I had half hoped he'd be out fighting crime or swamped in paperwork.

We went into his office. Claude looked puzzled, but glad to see us, a reaction so far off base that I came pretty close to turning around and leaving. But conscience demanded that we take the wooden chairs in front of Claude's old desk and state our business.

I glanced at Jack, took a deep breath, and launched in to our theory.

Claude said, when he was sure I'd finished, “That's pretty interesting stuff, there. What do you have to prove it?”

My heart sank. “You haven't found any evidence to point to Cliff, or Tamsin…or anyone else?”

“You mean, in general? Or in the death of Saralynn Kleinhoff? In the murder of my police officer? Let's just take Saralynn's murder. Let's see,” Claude rumbled, scooting lower in his chair and crossing his ankles. “Got to be someone that had a key to the health center. That's forty present and past employees, plus their families.”

I hadn't even thought of that.

“Got to be someone who doesn't mind getting their hands messy. Well, who knows? My grandmother, the most finicky woman on God's green earth, could butcher a chicken as fast as you can say Jack Robinson,” Claude continued. “Got to be someone with a personal dislike of Tamsin Lynd. Mental health workers get all kinds of enemies, right? And as for thinking it has to be the same person here as was stalking her in Illinois—well, why? Could be a copycat. Doesn't have to be someone who followed her down here. As far as hanging the squirrel, anyone could've done that at any time. You could tie up the squirrel ahead of time and take it over there, get it strung on the branch in a minute or less.”

This wasn't going the way I'd hoped. Jack was looking pretty bleak, too.

“Then, Gerry. Now that I know about Gerry, I can understand a lot of things about him better. But that doesn't stop me from being mad at him for deceiving me, and I'll bet a lot of other people were mad at him, too. Just because he told you that he was watching Tamsin's house doesn't mean that was why he was killed. And Cliff is the only one giving Tamsin an alibi for that one; he says she was in the shower. Well, maybe she was and maybe she wasn't.”

I closed my eyes and wished I were somewhere else.

“About this scenario you two have worked out—you may be right. May be. But if Cliff did stab himself, that doesn't necessarily mean he killed Saralynn and Gerry. That doesn't mean he's been terrorizing his own wife. We have no proof either way.”

“No forensic evidence?” Jack was leaning forward in his chair.

“There were fibers on Saralynn that came from a pair of slacks a lot like the ones Cliff was wearing that day. Khaki Dockers. Everyone's got a pair of those. And Cliff readily told us that he'd been in there earlier in the day, when he'd brought Tamsin her lunch. Fibers could've been left there then.”

“Say we're right,” Jack said. “Say that the one behind everything is Cliff. What do you think he'll do next?”

My eyes flicked to Claude, who was thinking the matter over.

“If he follows his pattern, he'll quit. They'll move. It'll start all over again.”

Jack nodded.

Claude continued, his face looking as seamed and careworn as that of a man ten years older. “But he's escalated and escalated. From nasty pranks, to small deaths like the squirrel, to human deaths like Saralynn's and Gerry's. What could be left? Next time, I reckon he'll try to kill her.”

With regret, I agreed.

We might as well not have gone to Claude,” I said to Jack.

We were on our way home from Body Time the next morning when I reopened the subject.

“Yeah.” He stared straight ahead, his face like a thundercloud and his posture just as aggressive as mine. “We can't just wait for her to be killed.”

“What else can we do? We can't stay outside her house for days or weeks. We can't follow her everywhere she goes, or kill Cliff before he kills her.”

Jack looked at me sidelong, and I could see the idea of taking Cliff out appealed to him. “We can't,” I said, in the voice my fifth grade teacher had used when she recited the Golden Rule to us every morning. “We are not going to get in trouble with the law again.”

When we got home, at least part of our problem was solved. There was a message on the answering machine from Tamsin. Even her voice sounded quavery. “Lily, this is Tamsin. I just can't get up the energy to do any housework, and the place is a wreck. If you're feeling better—only if you're well enough—I would really appreciate hearing from you.”

I called her back right away. “This is Lily,” I said.

“Oh. Oh, Lily! Can you come to help me clean house today? I don't know if I can go in to work this week…and I'm definitely staying home today. I'm so shaken up.”

“I think I can come over,” I told her. After all, it was Sunday morning, when I never scheduled anything so I could have a break from work. But I'd definitely had enough down time this week.

“Oh, thank God!”

We talked a little more—well, she did—and I hung up. Jack, standing beside me for the whole conversation, was sunk in thought. We looked at each other for a second or two.

“Do you have to go over there?” He ran a hand through his hair to push it over his shoulders.

“Yes. I owe her.”

“Do you think Cliff's there?”

“She didn't say.”

“I don't know about this, Lily. I hate for you to be anywhere close to the woman. I feel sorry for her, but she's a human lightning rod.”

I wasn't too enthusiastic about Tamsin's request myself. “Maybe she really wants me over there to clean. But I'm thinking maybe she needs company, and doesn't know anyone well enough to just ask for it.”

“So, you're going to go?” Jack was still reluctant.

“Yes, but I'll call you when I get there. If you don't hear from me, come over to see how everything's going. I don't know if I could take a lot of weeping.” At odd moments, the loss of the baby still struck me with a peculiar pain.

“You won't forget to call?” Jack touched my hair.

“No, I won't forget.”

I showered and changed, so it was about ten when I left my house, ten o'clock on a hot and peaceful Sunday morning. Shakespeare was at its best. The church parking lots were full. A little towheaded boy was in his driveway operating a remote-control car. Everything looked absolutely normal on Tamsin's street. Both the cars were parked in the drive, and I wedged in behind them.

I wasn't too pleased that Cliff was home, but I had only suspicion, after all. Lugging my cleaning-material caddy, I went up the front steps and knocked. With professional eyes I examined the porch; it needed to be swept, if not hosed down.

Tamsin came to the door immediately. She looked as awful as she had the day before. Her hair was straggly and dirty, her cutoff jeans and truncated sweatshirt were anything but pristine, and she was free of makeup and jewelry.

“Thank you for coming,” she said, in a limp voice. “I just can't stand for everything to be so dirty, with people dropping by all the time. I can't ever tell who'll be seeing my house, with the police coming in all the time.”

“Cliff home?” The litter of the big edition of the paper and a couple of stained coffee mugs in the living room were like a tableau called “Sunday morning.”

“Yes, he's in the small den back there where we keep the TV.” This living room, decorated in inexpensive American comfortable, did not contain a television or music system. Shelves hung on the wall held little china statues of wide-eyed children.

“Aren't they darling? I love those things,” Tamsin said, following my gaze. “My folks started giving me one a year when I was little. Then, Cliff took over.”

Despite her dishevelment, Tamsin seemed calm and in control. I felt encouraged. Maybe this wouldn't be too bad. As soon as she explained the program, I'd call Jack. “Where do you want me to start?” I stood before her with raised eyebrows, just waiting for her word.

“How about in there?” Tamsin pointed to the hall leading to the back of the house, and I preceded her down the dark corridor.

“In here?” I asked, and turned the knob of the door at the end.

“Yep,” she said, and I just had time to turn the knob and push the door open, all the while thinking she was sounding so cheerful. I was met with a burst of sunlight, and the sight of Cliff Eggers bound and gagged with duct tape and lying on the floor.

Then she did something horrible to me, something that made every atom in my body surge, and I fell down beside him.

I had some seconds of complete disorientation. Or maybe I lost minutes. My legs had no bones in them. Talking was simply impossible, even if I'd been able to formulate a sentence. My mouth was open and I was drooling. I felt wet at my crotch; I had wet my pants. When I became aware that I was still thinking, that my thoughts could form patterns and make sense, my first clear concept was that I should avoid having that—whatever it was—done to me again, no matter what the cost. My wandering gaze happened to meet Cliff's desperate brown eyes, and I slowly became anchored in the here and now, as unpleasant as that was.

I was still alive. That was the important thing. And I hadn't called Jack, so I figured he'd be coming sooner or later—unless Tamsin had done something while I was mentally out of the room, something to fool Jack, too.

Of course, I felt like the biggest idiot.

Cliff's eyes stared into mine. He was scared shitless. I didn't blame him. But I was just as glad the duct tape across his mouth made talking impossible. I didn't need anyone else's fear. I had plenty of my own.

“What you gonna do?” I asked Tamsin, after tremendous effort. It was the first sentence that managed to make it out of my lips. She was holding something in her right hand, a black narrow shape, and I finally recognized it as a stun gun. I took a deep breath of sheer bitterness. Oh, gosh, who had told her where to buy one? Could it have been me? It would have been hard for me to be more angry with myself than I was at this moment, or more sickened by the human race.

“If you're not outraged by what he's done to me, I'm going to have to do it myself,” Tamsin said. “Then, I don't know what I'll do about you.”

“Why?” Though that was probably a pointless question.

Oddly, she looked like she was thinking of answering me.

“I just realized the past few days. At first, it just didn't seem possible. That someone living with me, someone sleeping with me, someone who took my dresses to the cleaners, was trying to drive me crazy. The first stuff, the stuff in Cleveland, even that was Cliff.” Instead of looking at me, she was staring off into space, and I swear she had the most disillusioned, heartbroken expression. I would have felt sorry for her, if she hadn't just disabled and humiliated me. “I figured out just this week that after I lost our baby, Cliff was out to kill me. He thought I did things to kill the baby. And he knew I had a lot of insurance—one big policy through work and another on my own. He thought, in my profession, getting killed wouldn't be so strange. He was doing my transcripts for me, then. In fact, that's where we met, at that clinic.” The narrow black device swung in her hand like a television remote control. “So Cliff transcribed my sessions with a patient who had potential for great violence, one who actually might think of killing me. I think Cliff planned to beat me to death.” She got right in my face to confide this. If I'd had the energy, the hair would have been lifting on my neck. “He could count on the investigators going through my patients, finding—this man—and arresting him.”

“And?” If I didn't try to say too much, it came out okay. My legs were slowly feeling a little more functional. Cliff was moving a little more. She'd bound his hands in front, which wasn't too competent. He was picking at the duct tape across his mouth.

“We moved once, in the Cleveland area, after I found a snake nailed to the door. Moving didn't help. Then, as I've come to realize these past few days, Cliff stretched his fun out a little too long. Charles, my patient, died in a bar fight. Cliff had to stop. Of course, I didn't put two and two together then.” Her face became blank, her eyes opaque. “I really thought Cliff suggested this move to Shakespeare because he was concerned about me. He gave up his business and everything to move south with me, and I believed we would be happy here. I didn't put Charles's death together with the end of the persecution, the end of the horrible messages on the answering machine. But Cliff told me just a few minutes ago that the police up there did make the connection, did mention—to
Cliff
—the possibility of my stalker being Charles. They would've wondered if the calls had kept coming. So here we are, and we get settled, and I think everything is going so good, and I start getting the calls again. The house is entered. There's…poop…smeared on the door.”

Cliff had succeeded in ungagging himself. “Lily,” he said in a weak voice, “don't let her kill me.”

I didn't even glance at him. “Yeah?” I said to Tamsin, to encourage her to talk. The longer she talked, the more time I had to recover.

“So we decided the police had been wrong. That someone else had followed me down here. It still didn't occur to me to suspect the most obvious person.” She shook her head at her own naïveté. “We figured—that is, I figured, and Cliff pretended to—that since the calls only came when Cliff was gone, that meant the guy was watching me, knew when I was alone. That made it more scary. Notes slid under the door, notes in my clothes—oh, God!” She shuddered and wept.

My sympathy would have been deeper if I hadn't been sitting there in wet pants.

“Lily,” Cliff said, “I didn't do those things. I love my wife…even though she planted the stake in the step for me to get hurt on. If you'll just let me go, we can work this out.” He was plucking awkwardly at the duct tape around his wrists, but that was going to be much harder.

I said, “Tamsin, why'd you call me here?”

“Because you can kill him.”

I shook my head.

“You can kill him,” she repeated persuasively. “You killed a man before. This one deserves it, too. Think of what he's done to me. He shouldn't live!” Her face grew crafty. “What if he gets off and does this to someone else? I know from our therapy group that you have a sense of justice.”

Unhampered by the rules of law, she meant.

“You could kill him for me. We'd all be safer.”

She had condensed Cliff into every man who'd hurt a woman.

“Please do this for me! My mind is too fragile, too delicate, to sustain killing him.” She made it sound like her mind was made out of old lace. “I just don't have the guts, the determination. I need you to do this favor for another woman.” The empty hand touched her chest. “Help your sister out.”

“You—stunned me.”

“I was afraid you'd run away before I could talk to you if I didn't do something,” she told me, and her voice was so reasonable that I winced. “I know you, from the group. You wouldn't sit and listen to me unless I made you. Would you? Just think about it, Lily. You have to understand this. I loved him more than anyone else in the world. He took everything away from me. I think he did something to make me lose the baby. I don't believe in anything any more.”

And she should have made him unconscious, because he was eyeing me frantically, shaking his head to deny what she was telling me. “Lily, Tamsin has just lost her mind. Don't cater to her when she's clearly off her rocker. I love my wife, and I've done everything I can to help her through this. Please don't let her do something worse than this.” I noticed he was making progress on loosening the duct tape binding his wrists. It was difficult, but he was managing. The next time I wanted to secure someone, I wouldn't call Tamsin to do the securing.

Tamsin went on enumerating her wrongs. Since I was still too weak to move, I had plenty of time to think. I thought it was pretty lucky their baby hadn't been born, whatever had caused the miscarriage. What if what Tamsin was telling me wasn't true? She was deeply disturbed. She might be mistaken, and she might just be a liar. What if she just wanted an excuse to kill Cliff, with a reasonable chance of an acquittal, or at the most a light sentence? Pretending he'd confessed his long persecution of her, pretending he'd told her he'd killed Saralynn and Gerry McClanahan, would provide an excellent story to tell a jury.

Especially with a witness like me.

She could have no serious hope that I would take the bait and do Cliff in, but she could provide a good case for herself if I was there to witness her frenzy and her anguish, even if she had to immobilize me to make me watch it. I was pretty sure Tamsin was not quite as crazy as she was making out; I was pretty sure she was making a case for temporary insanity.

But I wasn't
completely
sure.

The only certainty I had was that I hated Tamsin, my counselor, who was twisting what she'd extracted from our therapy sessions to serve her own ends: my disregard for the letter of the law, my strong sense of justice. She'd ignored other things about me that were just as important, like my absolute and total hatred of people who made me feel helpless, my loathing of being physically unclean, and my dislike of being bested.