“Obviously you don’t,” Nat said, somewhat defensively. And then it came to her why Varda wasn’t giving any credence to her theory: “She told you as well, didn’t she? Lynn told you.”
He deliberately averted his gaze.
“There was nothing in your therapy notes,” Nat persisted. “But maybe you didn’t write everything down.”
Varda continued to make no response, which only added to Nat’s mounting frustration and anger. “Why didn’t you do something? Why didn’t you report him? See to it that, if nothing else, he wasn’t allowed back in the prison? At least that would have kept him away from the women. Prevented him from continuing—My god, he probably had access to Lynn even when she was in segregation. And you did nothing. No^mg.”
Varda held up a hand against the onslaught of her words.
“I know, I know,” she said angrily. “You were bound by confidentiality. But you could have talked to the priest. Not mentioned names. You might have gotten him to come clean and then you could have—”
“I did speak to him,” Varda said wearily. “Ironically, he sought me out.”
“Sought you out? Why?”
Varda looked her square in the eye. “For help. He was my patient. ”
She stared at him, dumbfounded—a feeling she’d been having far too frequently these days.
Nat spotted her as she was crossing the hospital lobby. Beth Milburne was standing near the exit. Nat fully expected the councilman’s wife to bolt as she started toward her. But she didn’t.
“Could we . . . talk?” Beth asked when Nat approached her.
Nat nodded, observing that the woman seemed anxious and looked drawn.
“The cafeteria?” Nat suggested.
Beth shook her head, looking furtively around the lobby. “I have my car. Just outside.”
Nat hesitated. Surely it would be a lot wiser—not to mention safer—to have their little chat in a public setting. But Beth was already out the door, heading to her car, a shiny silver Mercedes sports coupe.
Nat slid into the passenger seat and Beth drove off quickly down Massachusetts Avenue.
“Well?” Nat asked.
“How is . . . she?”
“You mean your ex?”
Beth’s jaw tightened,
“Your present husband paid me a visit—”
Beth promptly cut her off. “He doesn’t know. About my . . . past.”
They came to a red light and she screeched to a stop. Nat’s hands instinctively shot out against the dash to keep her body from propelling forward. In her anxiety, she’d forgotten to put on her seat belt, as had Beth. Nat put hers on now.
Nat saw that the woman’s hands were trembling as she lifted them off the wheel and tucked her blonde hair behind her ears.
“There’s a cafe on the other side of the street,” Nat said. “Let’s get a drink.”
The light turned green. The car behind them honked before Beth jerked forward. She maneuvered the Mercedes across the thoroughfare and managed to pull into a spot with a wide berth. As soon as they were parked, Beth began to cry softly.
Nat reached across and killed the engine. Then she rummaged in her bag and extracted a tissue for the distraught woman.
Beth dabbed at her eyes. “Dan doesn’t know. No one knows about my first marriage.”
“That’s not true, Beth. What about the letter you received addressed to ‘Bethany’? And the phone call?”
Beth crushed the tissue in her hands. “I have no idea who’s behind it. Dan thinks it’s a scam. I swear, he doesn’t believe for an instant there’s any truth to the story. He’s just furious because he believes we’re being set up. Something like this, if it hit the papers, even if there’s no truth to it, would mean political ruin for him.”
“But there is truth to it,” Nat reminded her.
“Not as far as Dan believes, I promise you,” Beth insisted.
“He seemed awfully agitated when he barged into my office.” To
put it mildly.
“He was just trying to protect me,” she muttered.
“Protect you from what?”
“He thinks one of his political opponents is behind this—”
“So, it isn’t really you he’s protecting; it’s himself.”
Beth flinched. “His career would be destroyed—”
“So you said. And my guess is,” Nat added, “so would your marriage.”
Beth shut her eyes. “Yes, I suppose it would. Which is why you must believe that I would never tell him—”
“There are other ways he could have found out,” Nat said. Beth looked square into Nat’s eyes. “If he had, believe me I would know.”
Nat nodded slowly, holding Beth’s gaze. “So, maybe the real question here is, how far would
you
go to keep him from finding out?”
Beth blanched but didn’t look away. “When . . . When Daniel asked me to marry him, I went to see Larry ... I mean . . . Lynn. He . . . She ... It was before ...” The councilman’s wife was having trouble getting the words out.
Nat helped her. “Before the Slater trial?”
Beth nodded. “I went to see . . . Lynn ... at the pain clinic. We had a long talk. A ... A good talk. He . . . She promised me she’d never ... let the truth be known. I really never thought she would, but I had to be sure.”
“What about Lynn’s parents? How did you keep them quiet?” Beth bit down on her lower lip. “I paid off Larry’s dad.” “Where’d you get the money?” Nat doubted Beth had very deep pockets of her own. On the other hand, her fiance— “Larry. Lynn.”
“I don’t understand,” Nat said.
“It was his money.
Her
money. Savings. It wasn’t my idea. Larry saw it as a way to give something back to his folks for . . . making their lives so miserable. A way to make it up to them. Of course, I had to promise they would never find out the truth.
Larry was sure his father would throw the money back in his face. I’m sure Mr. Ingram believes the money came from Daniel. Which was just as well. Until . . . now.” Beth nervously looked at her watch. “I’ve got to go. Dan is expecting me. We’re having a dinner party.” She looked over at Nat. “I kept my promise to Larry. And I know he kept his promise to me. And always will. It’s probably hard for you to understand, Ms. Price, but we did love each other. And in our own ways, we probably always will.”
Nat could hear her labored breath, smell a mix of stale air and gasoline. She felt the darkness closing in on her. She tried to break free, but something was holding her back. Holding her down. No, not
something.
Someone. Icy fingers dug into her flesh. Her skin prickled with revulsion. A cold object was pressed to her lips.
A cross.
Pray for salvation, Natalie.
She tried to cry out, but no sound emerged. And then, with abject horror, she realized why.
Her tongue was gone. It had been severed. She could taste blood. It was slowly filling her mouth. Making her gag.
And the darkness ... It wasn’t that she was locked inside the trunk of a car as she’d first thought. As she once had been. The smell was not gasoline after all. It was ether—
And the darkness was not outside. It did not surround her. It was within her. It was dark because she couldn’t see. She was blind. Her eyes—oh, God, her eyes had been gouged out.
She was crying bloody tears.
“You sound out of breath.”
Nat squinted at her bedside clock. It was a few minutes before seven
a.m.,
at which time her alarm clock was due to go off.
“Just a bad dream,” she muttered, glad for the call from Leo. Grateful to be yanked free of the nightmare.
“Yeah,” he said soberly. “There’s a lot of that going around these days.”
“What’s up?” Leo wouldn’t call her at this hour without a good reason.
There was a brief pause. “I’m over at the rectory.”
An image of that cold metal cross flashed in Nat’s mind.
“Are you arresting Father Joe?”
“No. That won’t be necessary.”
Because she was still groggy and hadn’t entirely put her nightmare to rest, it took her a few seconds to get the full meaning of Leo’s remark.
“He’s dead?”
“The housekeeper’s little girl found him,” Leo said grimly.
“Oh, no.” She was now fully awake.
“Seems the mom let Emily, as a special privilege, bring the priest his tea each morning. Apparently, he was an early riser— up at the crack of dawn and usually down at his office in the rectory by six
a.m.”
Nat picked up the pressurized tone in Leo’s voice. She was sure he was as disturbed as she was that the little girl had been the one to find the dead priest. Surely it would be an image that would haunt her for the rest of her life.
“How did he die?” she asked, afraid to hear the answer. How gruesome was it?
“He was hanging from the chandelier. The drapery cord from the curtain in the room was used as a noose. Rigor was setting
in by the time we got here. He’d been hanging for several hours, anyway.”
“Did he leave a note?”
“Yeah, there was a note,” Leo said.
“What did it say?”
“ ‘May God have mercy on our souls.’ ”
twenty-one
Recent research studies indicate dissociation can prolong PTSD. Many therapists now encourage patients to recall the trauma and relive it over and over in a controlled setting so that they can work through it.
Dr.
Harvey Young, trauma expert
NAT'S OFFICE DOOR slammed shut with such force, it literally worked one of the pins loose from its hinge. Her breath caught in her throat, her alarm instinctual at such a sound in a place like this. She released the breath as she saw that it was Hutch, and not an inmate gone berserk, storming into the room. Not that her anxiety abated by any means. Her head CO had a serious temper that he usually managed to keep in check. It took a lot to tip him over the edge. At the moment, he looked as far over the edge as she’d ever seen him.
“Are you out of your mind? Do you have any fucking idea what you’ve done? You drove a man to suicide. Not just any
man. One of the finest, most decent, kindhearted men I’ve ever had the blessed fortune to know. A priest, Nat. A priest.” He slammed a fist on her desk. Nat was sure he’d have preferred it make contact with her jaw instead of wood. But he was not that far over the edge. Not yet, anyway.
“Hutch, listen to me—”
“No, damn it. You listen to me. Father Joe told me the whole, story and it’s bullshit. The father wouldn’t hurt a fly. So I don’t care what the fuck you think you know. You’re wrong.” Tears, of rage and anguish spiked his eyes. His tone was only slightly less explosive.
“If I’m wrong, Hutch, why did he kill himself?”
He stared at her as if she was severely mentally challenged. “Do you believe in God, Nat?”
“Isn’t it a sin for a priest to take his own life?”
“I doubt he was in his right mind when he did it—when you drove him to it,” Hutch added accusingly. “His death is on your conscience now, Nat. It’s gonna be there for all time. I pity you.” But there was not even a hint of pity in his voice.
“People aren’t always what they seem, Hutch. Not even priests.”
“Not even prison superintendents,” he snapped before he turned his back on her and walked out, leaving Nat with the bruising sting of his final words.
Nat wanted to believe it was over. But of course it wasn’t. There was still no convincing evidence that Father Joe had attacked Lynn Ingram in that alleyway and viciously cut her up. Or that he’d shot Suzanne up with a near-lethal dose of heroin. While the priest was still alive, Nat could at least hold out hope that he would confess to those assaults. But he hadn’t. Nor had his suicide note provided them with anything concrete. Even Suzanne Holden’s admission of having seen Father Joe rape Lynn in prison didn’t prove he was the one who’d mutilated and tried to kill Lynn last Thursday. The priest was dead, but the case remained open. Would it ever be put to rest? Now their only hope lay with Lynn. If only her memory would return—
Nat was barely pulling herself together from her stressful encounter with Hutch when Leo arrived at the center with Suzanne in tow. He had personally escorted her from the hospital, along with a uniformed officer who would be stationed outside her room. Leo wasn’t taking any chances regarding Suzanne’s safety—a pointed-enough reminder that the case wasn’t closed.
Suzanne looked pale and shaky. Given what she’d been through, it was no surprise. But what did surprise Nat was the way she stiffened when Leo placed his hand lightly on her back as he guided her toward the stairs. Nat imagined that Suzanne’s response surprised Leo as well, and troubled him.
Nearly a half hour passed before Leo appeared at Nat’s office door. What had he been doing upstairs with Suzanne all this time?
“Does she know about Father Joe’s suicide?” Nat asked.
Leo nodded. “I thought it might ease her mind a little. I mean, to know he’s no longer a threat.”
“It didn’t?”
“No.”
Nat wasn’t surprised. It fit with her belief that Suzanne was suffering from Stockholm syndrome and therefore felt guilty for turning in a man she viewed as her protector—and, most likely, her lover. Leo had no doubt drawn the same conclusion.
“Maybe I should give Dr. Varda a call. Have him come in and talk to her,” Nat suggested.
“She says she doesn’t want to talk to anyone.”
“She’s been through a lot, Leo.”
“Yeah.” He dropped into a chair across from her desk.
“We’ve all been through a lot,” she added pointedly.
He looked at her but didn’t respond.
Nat suffered his silence until it got oppressive. “What about the little girl? Emily?”
“Her mother took her to stay with a friend. I need to show the kid that drawing, but it can wait. She’s in no condition to be answering questions.”
“And Melissa Raymond? Have you questioned her?”
“I questioned her, but I didn’t get any answers. She’s not exactly in a cooperative mood.”
Nat told Leo about Hutch’s mood.
“Nobody wants to see their priest as a rapist,” Leo said bleakly.
“What happens next?”
“I’m going to attend the autopsy this morning, and sometime this afternoon I’ll head out to Grafton to talk with some of the staff and female inmates. This kind of thing doesn’t happen in a vacuum. If Father Joe raped Lynn Ingram, then odds are there’ve been others.”