Dead Little Dolly (22 page)

FORTY

I ran up Harry’s overgrown drive, brambles pulling at me like something out of
The Wizard of Oz
, but Harry’s house was dark. I turned around, surrounded by a cacophony of mad dog bays and barks and the sound of wild bodies being thrown at a chain-link fence, while hurrying back out to the car.

I was spooked by everything. The outline of every tree seemed to have arms and legs attached. Every noise took my breath away. There was nothing like having a killer after you to heighten the senses and loosen the bladder.

I fell into the car, where Dolly was giving Jane a bottle. “He’s not home so that means he’s down at Delia’s and I’m not going down there, or anywhere. I just want to get home and lock the door and climb in bed and pull a blanket over my head.”

“Hmmp,” she said, saving her comments on cowardice and the fine friend she’d picked for a standoff with a killer—and other things I knew she was thinking. She said nothing more.

At home, with Sorrow leaping in consternation at how perfidious I was and then running outside as if he just remembered something he had to do, I was shocked to find everything in perfect order, then figured Harry had been over to let him out.

Jane was put in an open drawer of my guest room bureau. Comfortable enough—the drawer stuffed with blankets—she fell right to sleep. Dolly and I sat in the living room—all curtains pulled closed, all doors locked and double-checked, all windows locked up tight—and drank wine (me) and coffee (her).

And talked . . . and talked . . . and talked . . . half the night. Going over everything we knew and didn’t know, all possibilities and then all probabilities.

Dolly pulled out the list of addresses the director at Oakwood had for Cate.

Dolly read them over—all in Michigan, from Detroit to Warren to Mt. Pleasant to Grayling, and many places in between. Nothing there.

I turned off the lamps, feeling safer in the dark and thinking maybe we could go to sleep, but we kept on talking, mostly about Audrey Delores and how she’d dropped her married name, went from Flynn to Thomas. “Like my cousin said, maybe she never was married,” Dolly said. “Don’t you think that’s the most likely answer here?”

“Could have been the problem between Cate and her to begin with. So many families tear themselves apart about something as organic and ordinary as a kid having sex.”

“So, he dropped her, literally, at the hospital door and kept on going.”

“And that was that.”

“Until she was alone at that Detroit motel and she couldn’t see any way out for me or for her.”

I nodded but she couldn’t see me.

“You know what I don’t get, Emily?” She didn’t wait for an answer. I was moving in and out of sleep anyway. “I don’t get why women are punished like she was. I mean, so she had a kid. Turned on by Cate, and all the organizations that should have helped her. Doesn’t it seem like . . . I don’t know . . . like this world doesn’t much care for women?”

That woke me up. A little deep for me to get my mind around at that hour of the morning, still I tried to make sense of what she was saying. “I don’t know. Religion did that, I think. Supposed to love each other but makes up ways to hate instead. Especially women, ’cause we’re supposed to be weaker.”

“You think that’s true? That we’re weaker?”

I stretched my neck, then rubbed hard at it and turned my body to lie down on the couch. “Sure we are,” I said after a yawn. “In some ways. But smarter, intuitive. Smaller people have got to be smarter, watch people around them, be more alert. That’s called self-preservation. So—weaker in one way, stronger in others.”

“Yeah, that’s what I think. Poor Audrey. Too bad she didn’t have at least one person . . .”

“I think Cate was always sorry. You saw the letters.”

“Yeah, and sending her jellybeans.”

She was quiet a long time. “You think it was Audrey who killed Cate?”

The question was so loaded, from so many sides, I couldn’t answer.

“I’m hoping not,” she said when I was too quiet for too long. “I’m really hoping not. Just because I understand so much now . . .”

In the morning I made more coffee for her and tea for me while she heated Jane’s bottle and bathed her in my sink. Sorrow was enthralled with such a tiny human being and had to be pushed away again and again from sniffing Jane and licking her bare legs.

Over toast and strawberry jam—all I had to offer—we laid out how the day was going to go. First she wanted to call the doctor at Audrey’s hospital, talk to her, and see if she had any clue as to where Audrey might have gone. Would she be in the Detroit area for any reason the doctor knew? Up north? Was there ever anything said about a desire to visit anyone from her past?

I went to listen in on my bedroom phone, making notes for my next article.

Dolly dialed the hospital, asked to speak to the director, and when she was connected, asked for the doctor’s name and could she speak to her.

The director said it was Dr. Laura Cantwell she needed to speak to and dialed a single number. After a few rings a woman answered and the director asked if Dr. Cantwell was available. Another few minutes and a woman’s voice came on.

“Dr. Cantwell,” was all she said, a tired but pleasant voice.

The director spoke to her first, overriding Dolly’s anxious “Hello. Hello.” He explained what the call was about, that there’d been a court order to cooperate, and then hung up.

“How can I help you?” the doctor said. “You know Audrey was released from here close to a month ago?”

“Yes,” Dolly spoke up. “But she’s disappeared.”

“From the halfway house?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Where’d she go?”

“She left with another patient. Went to that patient’s home in Grand Rapids.”

“Have you tried her there?”

“Yes, ma’am. She only stayed a couple of days. She’s gone. Nobody knows where.”

“Well.” The doctor took a deep breath and went on to ask Dolly why she was looking for Audrey. Dolly explained, coming as close to the truth as she evidently felt she could.

“What I wanted to know from you, Doctor, is if she ever mentioned any place she might go if she got out of there?”

“All I can imagine is that she would finally want to see her mother. I think the woman lives up in northwest Michigan now. Maybe start looking there.”

“Her mother’s dead.”

“What! No. I’ve seen recent letters. Audrey showed them to me. She was so excited . . . something about a baby.”

“Her mother was murdered last week.”

There was an audible intake of breath.

“Then . . . eh . . . I don’t know how I can help you. She never mentioned anyone else. Nor any other place. That baby—she was excited about that.”

“I understand Audrey had a kind of . . . thing about babies.”

“That was a long time back, Officer. Part of the schizophrenia. A delusion, of being pregnant. Not uncommon among women, especially those who once had a child.”

“Director Heilman said Audrey would never let her mother visit. Never even wrote her a letter.”

“Well, yes, that was true. But Audrey had changed recently.”

“What’d she hold against her mother? She ever say?”

“I . . . don’t like to . . .” The doctor paused. “Confidentiality, you understand. I know you’ve got a court order but there are some things I don’t feel comfortable discussing.”

“This is a murder case, Dr. Cantwell.”

“Yes, I understand that but . . .” Again the doctor was silent.

After a long thirty seconds or more she said, “I’m going to tell you what I know but not because of your judge’s order. I think I can safely discuss this with you because Audrey would often tell me things, when we met for a cup of coffee in the dining room, or even when I’d stopped by her room to bring her some of those black jellybeans she loves. These things were outside our official visits and, I feel certain, outside doctor-patient confidentiality.”

More hesitation. “Audrey blamed her mother for losing her baby. The mother wasn’t there at the time. I don’t think she even knew about the baby before the court took her away permanently and placed her into foster care. But Audrey would only shake her head when I reminded her of that. She was sure her mother was behind the baby disappearing and that she still had her.”

She sighed. “After the new medication there was one big breakthrough after another. She finally faced what happened in that motel room in Detroit. I’m assuming you know the records. Still, she did blame Cate Thomas. She thought she could have done something. There were even times she told me Cate stole the baby herself.”

Another long pause and then an almost startled question. “Where did you say you were calling from, Officer Wakowski?”

“Leetsville, Michigan. Where Audrey’s mother lived.”

The doctor gasped. “I thought your name sounded familiar. Didn’t you call me about my cottage in Norwood?”

Dolly said nothing.

“Officer? Are you there?” the doctor finally asked.

“That was your place?” Dolly asked. “Your house was broken into and your car stolen?”

“Right. I was coming up next weekend . . .”

“Did you ever talk about the place in Norwood with Audrey Thomas?”

“I . . . You have to understand, Audrey has been my patient since I first came to Oakwood. We became quite good friends toward the end of her stay. When I got back from vacation she always wanted to see photographs. It was as if she lived vicariously through me and I saw no harm in it.”

“So she knew about the place up here?”

“Yes. We talked about her maybe visiting when she got out.”

“Would she know how to find the house?”

“I have no idea. But she’d seen pictures of it and Norwood’s a small village . . .”

“Audrey knows how to drive?”

“She drove before being admitted. She’d even had a half year of college before she got pregnant and her whole world crashed. But, stealing from me . . . I can’t believe that.”

Another pause.

“Where is she getting her medication, I wonder?” the doctor asked, almost musing. “She’ll need her prescriptions . . .”

Dolly said she’d be in touch.

“Please keep me up to date,” Dr. Cantwell said, her voice hesitant. “If I can help . . . I still consider Audrey my friend.”

FORTY-ONE

Dolly hunched forward on the stool, her hands tight around a mug of coffee. “You know what this means, don’t you?” she said.

Of course I knew. There was no question anymore. The woman who had smashed Dolly’s car at the cemetery, the woman with three bags of black jellybeans in her car, the “Thou Shalt Not Steal” woman, the one who made the phone calls to me and Bill, who broke into that house in Norwood, who left the jellybean on the floor of Jane’s nursery, who murdered Cate, who tried to kidnap Jane . . .

The sense of horror I felt was huge. I could only imagine what Dolly was feeling.

She went into the living room, looked hurriedly around her as if for a way out, then stood still, blinking at me.

“You’ve got to take care of Jane,” she said to me. “You’re the only one I’ve got.”

I didn’t understand.

She made a face. “I have to get back to that house in Norwood. We’ll stake out the place. Think about it. Where else does she have to go but there?”

“Don’t you think she’ll be hanging around Leetsville, I mean, trying to get to you or Jane?”

“She saw the police cars last night. She sure isn’t hanging around, waiting to be caught. If you keep Jane with you, she’ll be safe.” Her face crumpled, but only for a minute. “I trust you, Emily. I’ve got the feeling you’d die before you’d let her hurt Jane.”

Well, yeah,
I thought.

“I’ve got to get to Norwood. She may be there now and we can get her before anything else happens. I’ll call Lucky on my way into town.”

“You don’t have a car.”

“I’ll take yours.”

“Let me drive you. That makes more sense. I can’t be out here without a vehicle.”

She shook her head. “She knows that yellow Jeep. If she sees it, she’ll come after me.” She thought awhile. “Maybe that’s good—her coming after me. Just me. Without Jane. But I don’t want you that close to the middle of things.”

“Okay,” I agreed reluctantly, unable to think of anything else we could do. “But I’ll be here alone and I don’t have a gun. Not that I’d use one.”

“You would. If you had to. You’ve got your phone. You see anything. Anybody. Call the state police right away. I’ll call Omar, see if he can come stay with you.”

“Not Omar. I swear, Dolly, if I’m spooked by anything, I’ll call every cop I can reach.”

We were in agreement, reluctantly on my part. I got a quick course in keeping a four-month-old fed and diapered and washed and napped. Things I thought I’d learned from my library book. Then Dolly was gone, promising to be back later that afternoon, as soon as they got other departments to help with the stakeout.