The Drowning Pool (18 page)

He gave her a slightly lopsided smile and squeezed her hand. “Hey, don’t apologize. I don’t regret a moment spent with you. Besides, you’re doing me the favor here. I prefer having you with me today, and so no regrets. I just want to make certain we speak with Louise Scofield before her husband does.”

At the information desk, Mike got Mrs. Scofield’s room number and two visitor passes. It was only two flights up, and Kim agreed to walk instead of waiting for the elevator that, Mike explained, he knew from past experience was slow.

There was something oppressive about the sterile, institutional corridors and the omnipresent smell of antiseptic. She never would feel comfortable in a hospital. There were many ghosts here, crying out in pain. She found herself shivering. Mike put his arm around her. He radiated strength. Even under these circumstances, his mere touch sent a chemical reaction surging through her.

They found the correct room without difficulty. Mike didn’t seem the least bit surprised to find both Bert St. Croix and Mr. Scofield waiting outside like two pillars of granite contemplating eternity.

“She says I can’t see my wife until after you’ve talked to her.” Scofield’s voice was angry and he pointed an accusing finger at Bert.

“Under the circumstances,” Mike said, “that seems best. Don’t worry; you’ll see her. I just want to talk to her first. You’ll have to be patient. It’s a great virtue, so they say. I haven’t fully mastered it yet either. You can practice on Detective St. Croix. She’ll remain here with you.”

Bert looked far from pleased but said nothing and gave a stoic nod of her head. Walking into the hospital room beside Mike, Kim quickly glanced around. The room was a private one, which made it a lot easier to talk. Mike positioned himself next to the bed. Kim sat down on a chair beside the bed. Mrs. Scofield, who had been staring out the window, now turned and faced them. Against the white pillows her faced looked smaller and paler than ever. Kim observed that her arm had been set in a cast.

“How are you feeling?” Mike asked, his expression sympathetic.

“Physically? I’ve had better days. My head hurts badly. But at least I’m not afraid anymore. I don’t have to live in dread because the worst has already happened. It’s over and done with.”

Kim wasn’t certain that she understood Mrs. Scofield’s reasoning. She studied the younger woman thoughtfully. Louise Scofield did seem much calmer.

“Did your husband do this to you intentionally?” Mike asked. He could be awfully blunt. Kim supposed that came with the job he did.

“Intentionally?” Louise parroted, her russet hair spread out on the pillow like a fan.

“Do you want to press charges against him?”

“No, he doesn’t deserve that.”

“It would help if you told me what happened yesterday.”

“There isn’t a great deal to tell. We were quarreling as usual. He kept at me with his barbs and innuendoes. He just would not stop. When I began to cry and begged him to leave me alone, he became angrier. Finally, I lost control and began shouting at him, told him I was pregnant and couldn’t stand any more of his abuse. I told him I was going to leave him. He became like a madman. I’ve never seen him quite that way. He kept saying I was just like his mother. There wasn’t any reasoning with him.”

“You think he lost it because he believed the baby wasn’t his?” Mike had a direct way of asking hard questions that was not offensive. It seemed as if he’d perfected it as an art. Kim supposed it had something to do with his innate intuition.

Mrs. Scofield’s green eyes were reflective. “I don’t even know if that was it. Odd, because I was so afraid for him to know. It was when I said I was leaving him that Bill went wild. I thought he’d be glad for an easy out of our marriage after the way he’d been behaving. He’s been acting as if he hated me. When I said I was leaving him, his rage bordered on insanity. He started coming toward me, looking as if he were going to kill me, and I was terrified. I remember backing away from him, moving toward the steps that lead down to our front door. I told him again that I was leaving and that he shouldn’t think of trying to stop me. I said I would return for my things some other time. His features became distorted and his fist lunged forward. I thought, dear lord, he’s going to strike me! Involuntarily, I flinched, jerking backward. I lost my balance and fell backwards down the stairs.”

“He would have struck you if you hadn’t fallen?” Mike’s expression was intense, concentrated.

Louise Scofield gave a bitter cry from somewhere deep in her throat—or maybe it was her soul. “Probably not. As I lost my footing, his fist went crashing into the wall. He looked as shocked as I was when I fell backward that way. I can still see the expression on his face. It was the last thing I remember before I woke up here.”

“You hit your head.”

“So they tell me. As I told you, I have a terrible headache. But the worst part is losing the baby. I really feel awful about that. Yet I suppose it’s probably better this way. What kind of father would Bill be? What kind of childhood could my baby have?” Tears welled in her eyes.

Kim reached over and placed a comforting hand on Louise Scofield’s arm. “I’m sure there will be other babies under better circumstances in the future,” she reassured.

Louise lowered her tear-stained eyes.

“Mrs. Scofield, in cases of this kind, it’s not uncommon for a wife to cover up for her husband, even when he doesn’t merit it. Sometimes the motive is fear of reprisal. Other times, it’s caused by a misguided sense of loyalty. Some women foolishly believe that being beaten by a man shows he loves them.”

Kim wondered if Mike intended to charge Louise’s husband.

“No, it isn’t anything like that.” Louise’s denial was vehement.

“You’re not protecting him, are you? That would be a serious mistake. Because if you do decide to stay with him, and what he did was deliberate, there’s every possibility, every likelihood, this will happen again. I don’t want to scare you, but it could be even worse next time. Wife-beaters tend to follow a pattern. They apologize, beg forgiveness, say it will never happen again, then repeat the same ugly behavior.”

“You sound experienced.”

“Unfortunately, I am.”

Her long lashes fluttered like butterflies in a strong wind. “It’s just as I told you, Lieutenant, it really was an accident. I was afraid and I lost my balance.” The sparkle was completely gone from her eyes.

“All right. I have no choice but to accept your statement. Are you up to seeing your husband?”

“Yes, I think so.”

The tears remained in Louise’s eyes. Kim took Louise’s cold, delicate hand in her own and silently offered comfort. Louise turned a grateful look to her. She closed her eyes as Mike went outside to get Mr. Scofield. It was obvious that Mike had no intention of leaving the two of them alone together until he’d had a chance to talk to Scofield in his wife’s presence. Kim fully agreed; the first concern had to be for the woman’s safety and well-being.

Bert St. Croix did not demand inclusion, but waited while Mike followed Scofield back into the hospital room. Bill Scofield’s sandy hair was unkempt and he hadn’t bothered to shave. His clothes were rumpled, as if he’d slept in them. Was this to demonstrate atonement for his behavior of the previous evening?

“Mr. Scofield, your wife has confirmed that her condition was caused by an accident. There won’t be any assault charges filed against you at this time.” Mike’s steady gray eyes connected with Mr. Scofield’s slightly unfocused light blue orbs.

Scofield signaled that he understood with a weary nod of his head.

“You look tired,” Louise said to her husband.

“I didn’t sleep last night.” Scofield turned to Mike. “Lieutenant, can I please talk to my wife alone?”

“I’m too exhausted for another emotional scene.”

“I wasn’t planning on one. I just want to tell you that I love you. Everything I’ve done was because I love you.” Mr. Scofield dejectedly shoved his hands into his pants pockets.

Louise turned her face toward the wall.

“God, I didn’t mean to hurt you. If I can’t win you back, I don’t want to live anymore, I want to be dead!”

Kim exchanged an alarmed look with Mike, who placed a hand on Scofield’s shoulder. “You sound irrational right now. You’re close to the edge, too close.”

“I just don’t want to live without Lou. I didn’t mean to hurt her. I’ll make it up to her, if she’ll let me.” He clutched at his wife’s delicate hand and grasped it to his lips.

Kim could see panic seizing the young man when his wife appeared unmoved by his passionate anguish.

“Lou, please say you won’t leave me.”

She turned and looked at him, eyes dark and stormy. “You can ask me that after yesterday? I think our marriage was a mistake from the start. If I get a divorce, I would be doing us both a real favor.”

Her words appeared to strike him to the heart. “That’s stupid! We love each other.”

“But what kind of love is it? You and I got married for all the wrong reasons. You loved me for my weakness, because I needed to depend on you. I loved you for your kindness and supposed strength. We’ve been like two parasites feeding off each other. It’s not love. It’s sickness. God help me, I’ve been nothing more than a coward, running from responsibility and decision-making. But the price has been too high. Some people turn their dreams into reality. I turned reality into a dream. I dreamt you were some kind of hero, come to rescue me from all of life’s sorrow. But you can’t help me, can you? It’s time for me to help myself. Time to grow up. In memory of the baby that will never be born, and for my own self-respect, I know I have to walk away from you.”

“That’s why I never confronted you outright about Bradshaw. I knew you’d leave me for him. My mother left my father and me when I was six years old. She never came home, never even wrote us a Christmas card. I was afraid it would be like that all over again.”

She stared at him in surprise. “You told me your mother died.”

“As far as I was concerned, she was dead. I never loved another person until I met you.” He pressed her hand again, but she turned away. “When this thing started with Bradshaw, I became obsessed with the fear of losing you just the way I lost my mother. I never saw the man my mother went away with, but it was different with Bradshaw. I knew him and I hated him. As for you, I’m never going to let you go.”

Kim was disturbed by what Scofield was saying. It seemed very possible that Bill Scofield had murdered Bradshaw and was on the verge of admitting it. She hoped Mike would proceed cautiously. She wasn’t certain that Scofield was entirely rational.

“Your wife understands that you didn’t intentionally hurt her. But the Bradshaw homicide is a different matter. Did you kill him?” Mike probed Scofield with intensity.

“I didn’t kill the bastard, although I would have liked to do it.”

“Then again, you aren’t demonstrating a very high level of emotional stability, are you?”

“I have reasons for what I’ve done, good reasons.”

“Really? What are they?”

“I don’t care to discuss them with you.”

“Would you prefer Detective St. Croix?”

“Don’t threaten me. Look, I just want to be alone with my wife.”

But Mike clearly had no intention of letting up on Scofield. “You’re a prime suspect in a homicide investigation. I can have you brought back to headquarters for formal questioning.”

“What do you want from me?” Scofield ran his hand through the shock of sandy hair as if he were in agonizing pain.

“Cooperation. I want to know every bit of information you’re holding back. First, why were you so certain that your wife was having an affair with Bradshaw?”

“Little things mostly, like the way she wants and needs me less all the time.”

“That’s awfully general, in fact, downright vague. Give me some specifics.”

“All right. One day after we’d been playing tennis for a while, Bradshaw and I took a break. We had this conversation I was never able to put out of my mind. He told me about a special date set up for that evening. I told him that I wasn’t particularly interested. He kind of laughed at me, asked if I thought I was superior because I was a married man. Then he said I’d be very interested in knowing who the woman was, in fact, I’d be very surprised because the lady in question was also married. He laughed right in my face. Next thing I knew, he was asking me about Lou. ‘You’ve got a real beauty there,’ he said. ‘Be careful someone doesn’t steal her away from you.’ Another time, we happened to get on the same bus for work and he sat down beside me. I tried to read my newspaper, but he just kept on talking during the entire trip into the city. Know what he talked about? Lou. Said how she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen and how lucky I was to have her. He even got kind of poetic, for a creep like him. He claimed Lou’s hair reminded him of flaming autumn leaves. That wasn’t the way he usually talked about women, believe me.”

“It sounds as if he were baiting you, Scofield. Is that what you based your suspicions on?”

“In part.” Scofield appeared reluctant to talk further.

“There has to be more,” Mike prodded.

“Lou became very secretive. It wasn’t like her. We’d always shared everything. She used to be open with me.”

Louise turned to Mike. “When I found out I was pregnant, I was too afraid to tell him.”

“Because of his jealousy over Bradshaw?”

Louise surprised Kim by shaking her head. “No, more than that. Bill always said he didn’t want to have children, that it wasn’t right to bring them into this miserable world. I was scared he’d be angry with me for being careless about taking my birth control pills. Then as his jealousy grew stronger, it became more difficult to tell him.”

“You should have told me. It would have saved us so much misunderstanding.”

“Would it really?” She faced her husband squarely.

“Just don’t leave me, honey. I’ll do anything.”

“I won’t promise that.”

“Give me another chance,” Scofield begged.

“If I do, what’s to prevent you from acting this way again? Some man might look at me and you’d fly into a rage. If he so much as glanced at me a second time, you’d be convinced we were sleeping together. I won’t live in fear anymore.”