Hare Today, Dead Tomorrow (31 page)

“That’s pretty intense stuff,” Nick commented matter-of-factly. “We did a case that involved BDSM a couple of weeks ago.”

I sat up, suddenly as alert as if I’d actually downed one of those cappuccinos I’d been fantasizing about. “I’m talking about fetishes and leather clothing and whips and chains...”

“Right,” he said. “BDSM—Bondage, Degradation, Sadism, and Masochism. Or as the medical field refers to it, paraphilia. An S&M group called the Leather Lords and Ladies sued a big hotel chain when it canceled its conference after learning what the theme was. If you want, I can grab my notes.”

“Which you just happen to have brought with you?”

Looking guilty, he said, “I thought I might sneak in a little study time. But that was before I knew how much fun this weekend was going to be.”

“Hmm,” was all I said. But I had to admit that I was glad he’d brought along his notebook.

He retrieved it from his backpack and began thumbing through the pages. “Here it is.
Paraphilias are defined as attractions that, in the extreme, deviate from the
most generally accepted forms of sexual expression.
They include practices like inflicting or receiving pain, as
in sadism and masochism, exhibitionism, voyeurism,
and fetishes, like leather or rubber.
”

My ears pricked up at his mention of rubber. So the medical profession had the goods on those balloon-lovers, after all.

“What I learned is that, in general, the feeling is that there’s nothing wrong with a little experimentation,” he went on. “Or even with playing out a few fantasies. Apparently even something as innocent as adding whipped cream to a couple’s sexual experience could be considered part of BDSM.”

He glanced over and leered at me before continuing. “Let’s see what else...Some couples engage in spanking
or tying one member up with silk scarves or handcuffs.
Others enjoy dressing up and role-playing. As long as
only consenting adults are involved, this type of activity
isn’t considered pathological.
”

“Is there any relationship between paraphilia and an inclination toward violence in other situations?” I asked.

“That’s a bit more complicated,” Nick said, skimming his notes. “Take exhibitionists, for example. They find it sexually stimulating to expose themselves to strangers. Yet they rarely seek out additional sexual contact and hardly ever commit rape.

“Interestingly,” he continued, “the goal of acting out S&M scenarios isn’t actually sex, although sexual relations do frequently follow. But the acting out is considered a reward in itself. Most people who engage in it report that they find it cathartic. In fact, many people enjoy this kind of activity primarily for its value as an escape. It gives them a chance to let go of their identity and become someone else, at least for a little while. They find it an effective way of reducing stress.”

Even I had to admit that dressing up in leather and chains didn’t have the side effects of wolfing down a pint of Chunky Monkey.

“Yet there’s an interesting contradiction in the BDSM world,” Nick continued, impressing me with how much useful information he’d picked up in only a few short weeks of law school. “The world of S&M has its own set of strict rules. A ‘frame,’ as it’s called, is a set of parameters that participants substitute for reality. As long as they remain inside that frame, they experience a freedom to do and say and even feel in ways they might not be able to in their real lives.”

“All this makes the BDSM thing sound pretty innocent,” I observed.

“For the most part, I think it is. However, at the other extreme are behaviors that can be considerably more harmful, psychosexual disorders that may include rape and pedophilia. And any sexual activity that involves sadism and masochism certainly has the potential to get out of hand. One of the most common problems occurs when one person chokes another to enhance the sexual experience by decreasing the amount of oxygen that reaches the brain. From time to time, someone estimates wrong, resulting in death.

“But things can also get out of hand psychologically,” Nick went on. “For some people, engaging in paraphilism, especially masochistic behaviors like being spanked, can feed into their sense of low self-esteem. They may be attracted to situations in which they’re abused because they think they deserve it. Others have trouble limiting the experience, bringing either masochism or sadism into other aspects of their lives, where it’s inappropriate or even destructive.”

Interesting, I thought. And not quite as innocuous as Thor made the whole scene out to be. While before I’d been disturbed by what Cassandra Thorndike had been into while she was still alive, I now wondered just how much it had had to do with her death.

“So does everything you learned about BDSM make you more inclined to be my date at a dungeon event—or should I start reading the personal ads?”

“I’m in.” Nick sighed. “After all, it sounds like we have no choice. Not if it might help get Suzanne out of this situation.” Frowning, he said, “There’s only one problem.”

“What?” I asked nervously.

“I haven’t got a
thing
to wear.”

“The worst thing about getting away from it all,” I announced as Nick and I tromped across the wooded area surrounding the Big House, back to the cottage, “is that when it’s over, you have get
back
to it all.”

Still, as I neared the front door, I had to admit that I was kind of looking forward to returning to my real life. There was something to be said for having your own coffeepot—not to mention being able to find the milk and sugar without sending out a search party.

Even more important was my menagerie. I’d missed having them around, even though I’d stopped in at least five times the day before to feed them, check their water bowls, walk them, scratch their necks or smooth their feathers, and play a few rounds of Slimytoy.

“I must be nuts, but I’m actually looking forward to spending the day studying,” Nick said. “I think I’ll just
—
oomph!
”

The
oomph
came from the fact that he’d just walked into me. And that was because as soon as I opened the door and stepped inside the cottage, I froze.

Something was wrong. Very wrong.

While I wasn’t the most conscientious housekeeper in the world, I knew immediately that there was no way I was responsible for the chaotic condition of the living room. Even though I’d rushed in and out several times the day before—and was now viewing it with a fresh outlook—this level of disarray could only mean one thing.

“The place has been ransacked!” I cried, my voice a hoarse whisper.

Nick stood beside me in silence as we both took in the scene before us. The cushions had been pulled off the couch and the upholstered chair, and the stuffing from one of the throw pillows had been torn out in handfuls and strewn across the floor. The veterinary journals I’d left stacked on the coffee table had also been tossed to the ground. My CDs were dumped on the rug, mixed in with the junk mail that had been piling up on the table that served as both a desk and a place to eat.

“My animals!” I cried, my eyes darting around as I frantically attempted to spot them. Prometheus stood on his perch, looking a little agitated but otherwise fine. Leilani was in her tank, undisturbed, blinking at me lazily.

As for the others, the yelps and scratching sounds coming from the bedroom clued me in to their whereabouts. I just hoped the vile intruder who had done this hadn’t harmed a single piece of fur on any of them....

I stifled a sob as I strode quickly through the room, feeling too overwhelmed to take it all in. Glancing into the kitchen, I noted that everything in there seemed to be in its proper place.

The bedroom was another matter entirely.

As I expected, Max and Lou sprang into action the moment I opened the door, leaping up on me excitedly. Catherine the Great blinked at us from her comfortable position on a throw rug, while Tinkerbell leaped around excitedly like Baryshnikov on speed. Aside from the inconvenience of all four of them being forced to bunk together, they didn’t look the least bit ruffled—or hurt.

“Thank God you guys are okay!” I cried, running my hands over each one of them and looking into their eyes, just to make sure. “If only you could tell me what happened!”

Looking around the room gave me some inkling. Clothes that had been pulled out of drawers and yanked off hangers lay across the bed and floor like the remains of a ticker-tape parade.

Nick joined me in the doorway. “Glad I left most of my notes in the car,” he said grimly.

The dogs had immediately dashed over to him, anxious to give him a warm enough welcome that he wouldn’t feel left out. Tinkerbell, meanwhile, had already trotted over to her water dish, while Cat looked as if she wasn’t going anywhere.

I did have one pet who was capable of speaking, more or less. I went back into the living room to interrogate him.

“Who was in here, Prometheus?” I asked my parrot.

“Awk!”
he cried. “Happy birthday to you!”

Nick followed, distractedly pushing the hair out of his eyes. He watched my futile interaction with my bird, then shook his head and asked the same question.

“Jessie, who the hell could have done this?”

I couldn’t say for certain. But I’d just spotted something lying on the ground that gave me a pretty good idea.

Chapter 13

“If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow, but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much.”

—Mark Twain

I bent over and picked up the red object. “What is that?” Nick asked, sounding confused. “A bow tie.” I fought to keep my voice even. “The kind that’s worn with a tuxedo.”

“What does that mean? That our intruder was a runaway groom?”

“I can’t be certain,” I replied, “but it does suggest one person in particular. Ethan Thorndike. Cassandra’s brother.” I couldn’t resist adding, “He’s kind of strange.”

“But why would he come here—especially if he was on his way to a formal event?” Nick asked. “Do you think he was looking for something?”

I shook my head. “First of all, he’s not the one who would have been wearing this. It was more likely worn by the ventriloquist’s dummy he carries around with him like a large and not very subtle security blanket. Second, I doubt that this tie just fell off. It’s much more likely that Ethan is trying to send me a message. One that says ‘Mind your own business,’ loud and clear.”

“But our cars and your van are parked right outside,” Nick pointed out. “Last night or early this morning, whenever he was here, it must have looked like we were home.”

“Not if he broke in last evening. There were no lights on here in the cottage.” Sighing, I added, “There isn’t much to that lock on the front door. I usually feel so safe here that it never even occurred to me to get a stronger one.”

Nick frowned. “This might be a good time to take care of that.” Pulling his cell phone out of his pocket, he added, “After I call the police, how about if I call a good locksmith?”

It was a good plan, and I turned on my laptop to find the number of someone local. But there was also something else I wanted to research online.

“I think it’s time for me to get to know the murder victim’s baby brother a little better,” I told Nick as my computer booted up. “Seems to me it wouldn’t be a bad idea for Lieutenant Falcone to do the same. In fact, I think I’ll suggest it to him when I call him to tell him that somebody broke into my house, clearly to scare me. Maybe this will convince him that Suzanne had nothing to do with Cassandra’s murder—and that he’d be better off focusing on finding the person who did.”

A startled look crossed his face. “Don’t tell me you’re going to ask this Ethan character over for dinner.”

“Don’t worry,” I assured him. “I’m much more creative than that.”

While I waited for the police, I logged on to
Newsday
’s Web site to check the day’s headlines. It was a good thing I braced myself, since a wave of dizziness swept over me as I read the words splashed across the screen:
Ex-Wife
Questioned in Thorndike Murder.
The article’s byline, Forrester Sloan, didn’t make me feel any better.

As I started reading, things quickly went from bad to worse.

A new suspect has emerged in the murder of Cassandra
Thorndike, a sales representative for her family’s winery,
Thorndike Vineyards in Cuttituck.

On Friday, Norfolk County police questioned
Suzanne Fox, the ex-wife of Thorndike’s fiancé, after investigators discovered a bloody sweater in Fox’s car during a search of her home and vehicle.

“Fox is someone we are looking at closely, along with
several other individuals,” Lieutenant Anthony Falcone,
Norfolk County chief of homicide, said at a news conference yesterday. Falcone indicated that police are close to
making an arrest in the case. According to police, several
witnesses described a person fitting Fox’s description
leaving the murder scene shortly before Thorndike’s
body was discovered on October 3.

When questioned by authorities, Fox, a veterinarian
in Poxabogue, first denied being at the home at 254
Cliffside Lane, but later reversed her story when detectives discovered her fingerprints at the residence, police
said.

Thorndike, 29, was found stabbed in her Cuttituck
home office. Police discovered the body while following
up on a telephone call from her next-door neighbor,
Virginia Krupinski.

The victim’s fiancé, Robert Reese, owner of the
restaurant Granite in East Brompton, told police that his
ex-wife was “upset” when she learned that he intended
to remarry.

“Oh, boy,” I breathed. I had to admit that Forrester had written the article very objectively, stating the facts and only the facts. Still, seeing Suzanne’s name in print, along with Falcone’s claim that the police were looking at her closely, was chilling.