Nat kept her cool but figured she was fast using up her time. “An acquaintance of Jennifer’s brother, Rod. I just stopped by to say hi.”
Jennifer’s eyes narrowed. “No one calls my brother Rod.” “Really? It’s just a nickname. Just like Beth. Beth is short for something, right?”
“Elizabeth,” Milburne said acidly. “I still didn’t catch—”
But before she finished her sentence, Nat looked past her as if spotting someone else she knew. She waved cheerily.
The woman who caught Nat’s eye waved back. Naturally, she thought she should know who Nat was. As Nat hurriedly made her way over to the woman, she was sure both Jennifer and Beth were following her every step.
“Hi,” Nat greeted the woman warmly. “Tell me, do you have any idea where the rest room is in this place?”
fifteen
Inmate 43906 (Lynn Ingram) has been treated for facial abrasions which she states resulted from having tripped oi>er a crack and falling in the prison yard. That would make it her fourth
accident
this week.
Janice Ryan,
R.N., CCI
Grafton
CAROL BELL REGARDED them warily at the doorway of her brick Georgian colonial on a quiet, upscale, suburban, tree-lined street in Newton, a town fifteen minutes west of Boston. The first thing Nat noticed about Harrison Bell’s wife was that she looked even more athletic in person than she had in that family photo on her husband’s desk. She was dressed much like she had been in that photo. Black spandex shorts and a red jersey, both of which hugged her muscular frame. Her cheeks were flushed, like she had just returned from biking or a run. Although, upon seeing the three of them at her doorstep, her face was rapidly losing its healthy glow.
Carol looked older in person. Older than in the photo on her husband’s desk. Older—at least appearancewise—than her husband. Possibly by several years. Nat also noted that while Carol’s hair had been blonde in the picture, it was now a medium shade of brown, worn severely pulled back from her face and fixed with an elastic.
The only accessories the doctor’s wife was wearing were a pair of small gold loops in her pierced ears and a diamond-studded wedding band. Nat’s gaze was drawn to that band, not because it was particularly eye-catching—the diamonds were modest-size chips—but because Carol Bell was absently twisting it as she scrutinized the two detectives’ IDs.
“I don’t really understand why you need to come here,” she said. Her lips, already thin, almost disappeared as she pressed them together. In direct contradiction to Oates’s supposed belief that Nat’s presence would make Carol more comfortable, she seemed to regard Nat with even more suspicion than she did the two detectives.
“I thought you’d prefer it to having to make a statement at the station, Mrs. Bell,” Leo said pleasantly.
His casual tone immediately put Carol Bell on the defensive, as Nat was sure Leo knew it would. Carol’s cold expression instantly gave way to nervousness. “I already . . . made a statement. My husband and I were on the phone—”
“May we please come inside?” Leo interrupted. When she hesitated, he added, “I don’t think you want your neighbors seeing us all discussing police matters on the street.” He emphasized the word
police.
Carol Bell’s cheeks regained their flush, but this time it was not the result of exercise. Nat wasn’t sure if Carol was embarrassed, alarmed, or angry. Probably a combination of all of the above. Whatever emotions she was experiencing, the doctor’s wife did begrudgingly step aside and let them in.
“Are you home alone?” Oates asked as they entered a wide foyer painted a soft blue.
“Yes. My boys are at sports practices. My daughter’s playing next door. And I dismissed my cleaning lady early.” She sounded much aggrieved as she announced the latter, although, as Nat glanced around, she didn’t detect so much as a smidgen of dirt on the glistening wood floor. From where she was standing Nat could also see a spotless dining room through an elegant archway on the right and an equally ordered living room through a matching archway on the left. At the front of the living room, sitting just inside the bay window was a mahogany baby grand whose surface had been polished to a high sheen. A fresh bouquet of irises artfully arranged in a gleaming silver vase sat atop the piano.
On its best day, Nat’s place didn’t look a fraction this clean and tidy. And she didn’t live with three active children. Then again, she did have a rambunctious dog who had a particular fondness for gnawing on the wooden legs of her furniture. Still, Nat would take Hannah anytime over a husband who had a fondness for gnawing on her heart.
Carol Bell made no move to escort them into either the living room or dining room. Arms folded firmly against her chest, she planted herself in the foyer near the wide, curved staircase leading to the second floor. “As I’ve already stated on the phone to that officer there”—she pointed at Oates, who was standing closer to the door, notepad and pen in hand—“Harrison and I were on the phone—”
“Your phone records indicate no outgoing calls this past Thursday between eleven
a.m.
and one
p.m.”
Although Leo’s tone was mild, with no attempt at provocation, you’d never know it to look at Carol Bell’s expression. She looked as though she’d been challenged to a duel and wasn’t at all prepared for the challenge. “I... I didn’t call . . . from home. I was at Josh’s school. They’d called me in. You can check with the principal if you don’t believe me. I... I called from a phone booth across the street from the school.”
“Why?” Leo asked.
“Because I was very upset—”
“No.” He cut her off. “I mean, why not call from the principal’s office?”
Carol looked at him like he was clueless. “Because I didn’t want the principal or the office secretaries knowing my business, that’s why.”
“And you were upset because your boy got suspended from school.”
“Men,” she muttered under her breath.
Leo gave her a baffled look.
“You, my husband, even the principal—also a man—think it’s no big thing if your son gets into a fight and is suspended from school. ‘It happens,’ you all say. ‘Boys will be boys. Especially teenage boys.’ Well, I’m sorry, but I do happen to think it’s a big deal.”
“I agree with you,” Nat said. Partly because it was true, and partly because she was hoping to encourage a woman-to-woman connection with Carol Bell.
Nat thought she’d managed the latter to some extent, because as Carol looked her way, her expression softened. “Josh has never gotten into trouble before. He’s a good boy. An A student. At least he was, until ...”
“Until when?” Leo prodded when she hesitated.
Carol began absently twisting her wedding band again. “He’s fourteen. Boys at fourteen, they start thinking they know it all. And suddenly it’s not cool to be smart. To get good grades. To show up with your homework done.”
“So this is pretty recent,” Leo said.
“This semester. Not right off. No, Josh started ninth grade on the right foot. But then ... I don’t know ... he started acting up, not just at school but at home, too. Sassing us. Especially me. Of course, I’m the one who’s home all the time, so naturally I get the brunt of it.”
N$t picked up a tinge of resentment in her voice. So Harrison isn’t home much. But then, what doctor is? Still—
“Does Josh know Lynn Ingram?” Leo asked.
Leo’s question clearly threw Carol Bell for a loop. Her face went almost as gray as her blouse. “I don’t understand . . . your question. Josh has nothing to do with that. . . with her. What are you trying to do here?”
“I was just thinking, if Josh does know Lynn—and I imagine he would—he’s probably quite upset about what happened to her.”
“We’re . . . We’re all. . . quite upset,” she stammered.
“Right, there’s your younger son, Billy, and your little girl, Daphne, isn’t it?”
She glared at Nat. “My children have absolutely nothing to do with . . . with—” She left off abruptly, her expression turning grimmer. “I don’t have anything more to say.”
She briskly checked her watch. “I have to pick up my boys. Their practices are almost over.” She plucked up a ring of keys from a crystal bowl sitting on her oak hall table. “I hope this is settled now. My husband and I were on the phone discussing Josh when . . . when that terrible incident took place. Harrison has told me he’s . . . under suspicion—” She was clutching the keys so tightly, Nat wouldn’t have been surprised if one of them didn’t cut through her skin. “I hope my corroboration—yet again—finally puts an end to such a ridiculous notion. Harrison has nothing but. . . but the highest regard for Lynn Ingram.” “Despite the fact she’s a confessed murderer?” Nat asked, putting a touch of incredulity in her voice.
“Harrison says it was self-defense.” Her anger gave way to a kind of exhaustion. “My husband is very loyal.”
“Do you believe it was self-defense?” Nat asked.
Carol merely regarded her with a tired expression. “I believe that a man is dead, Ms. Price. Dead at the hands of Lynn Ingram. ”
“Did you ever worry for your husband’s safety?”
Carol Bell stared at Nat in silence for several moments. “I was very much against Harrison taking Lynn back,” she finally said in a quiet, even voice. “I told him as much. But like I said, my husband is a very loyal man. As well as a stubborn one. When he makes up his mind to do something, or about someone, there is nothing or no one who can change it.” Then she added, both pointedly and rather poignantly, “Especially me.”
“You did good in there.”
Nat gave Leo a sideways glance as she settled into the passenger seat of his car. Oates had taken off in his own vehicle. “Thanks.”
“So, what do you think?”
A loaded question if ever there was one.
Leo knew it, too. So he quickly added, “About the Bells.” “Your typical married couple,” she said ruefully. “They don’t
spend much time together; when they do, they make a lot of small talk; she feels misunderstood, he feels beleaguered; he wants less, she wants more—”
“Less and more of what?”
She smiled wryly. “Involvement.”
Leo made no response. They were both aware that as she was describing the Bells’ relationship, she might as easily be describing her own past marriage.
He pulled out from the curb and began following the route back to the Mass Pike.
“Varda told me Oates picked up his therapy records on Lynn this morning. Anything useful there?” she asked.
“I haven’t had a chance to go through them yet. There’s a copy for you on the backseat. Read it through and we’ll compare notes.” He paused briefly before adding, “Come have dinner tonight at my place.”
She looked over at him, but Leo’s eyes remained fixed on the road.
“I don’t think so,” she said quietly. Spending more time with Leo’s family would only complicate an already-too-complicated situation. “Come by the center tomorrow and we’ll talk in my office.”
“Tomorrow’s Sunday,” he reminded her.
“I know. But I’m still buried in work. And I haven’t been at the center much in the past few days.”
When Leo pulled up in front of Horizon House fifteen silent minutes later, Nat reached behind for Varda’s records, then opened her door.
“Jakey asked after you this morning. He wanted to know when he was going to be seeing you again.”
She glanced over her shoulder at Leo. “Next time he’s here visiting his mother.” Which would be the next day. Jakey and his grandma hadn’t missed a Sunday visit yet.
“That may be some time,” Leo said.
“Why is that? They always come on Sunday.” She didn’t add that Leo hadn’t missed many Sunday visits himself.
Leo sighed. “You’ll have to ask Suzanne. She phoned this morning and told me she doesn’t want my mother or Jakey to visit for a while.”
“And you?”
Leo didn’t respond. Which was response enough for Nat.
“What’s up?” Jack sauntered across Nat’s office and perched himself on the corner of her desk.
“I’ve been going over the notes Dr. Varda kept of his therapy sessions with Lynn Ingram.”
“Come up with anything interesting?”
“Maybe.” She riffled through the pages until she found the one she was looking for. “This is from their sixth session. Goes back to about two months after Lynn was placed in isolation. Listen. I want to read you a few highlights.”
Jack nodded.
“ ‘Lynn is quite depressed today. Says she isn’t sleeping well. Reports several nights of bad dreams. Reluctant to talk about them. Does admit to a common thread in all of them—being cut up.’ ” She heard Jack’s sharp intake of breath. A very similar response to the one she’d had when she first read those words.
“Does she say who was cutting her up in her dream?” he asked.
“If she did, it’s not in his notes. Varda connected it to her sex-change operation.”
“Shrinks,” Jack muttered disdainfully
“But there’s something else interesting. Here: ‘Lynn becomes noticeably agitated when I question her about her visit yesterday with Harrison Bell. I ask if she’d prefer he didn’t visit, but that only increases her agitation. Finally, she says, “He needs me.” She refuses to elaborate.’ ”
“Bell is our man. I can feel it,” Jack said. “I’ve been around enough of these psycho creeps to know one when I see one.” “Feelings won’t convict him. Besides, we aren’t at a loss for suspects in this case. Bell is definitely not alone on the list.” x Jack smiled sardonically. “Now you sound like your boyfriend.”
She gave her deputy a sharp look. “Leave it, Jack.”
Jack held up his hands in mock surrender. “Sorry.”
Her phone rang. She was happy for the interruption.
Her happiness was short-lived.
sixteen
Some of the inmates felt sorry for me. My roommate, certainly. But what could Suzanne do? What could I dd? What could any of us do? We were all afraid. We all had plenty of reason to be afraid.
L. I.
"OKAY," NAT SAID sharply, “take me through it again. From the top.”
Hutch knew his boss well enough to know that her biting tone masked extreme agitation bordering on panic. So he merely shrugged, broad shoulders stretching the fabric of his khaki shirt. He looked from Nat to Jack, then back to her again. They were standing in a secluded corner of the small lobby of Mercy Medical Center, a small hospital located on Beacon Street, two blocks south of Newbury. Nat was starting to spend more time in the city’s hospitals than she did in her own office.