Deaths of Jocasta (16 page)

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“Yes, I’ll be okay. I’ll see you tomorrow,” I replied. “Enjoy dinner.” I unlocked my car door.

She leaned forward and brushed her lips against my cheek. Then she turned and walked across the lot to where her car was parked.

I got in my car. I wondered if Aunt Greta and Sister Ann had been watching. I hoped Cordelia wouldn’t end up regretting standing by me.

I pulled out, not wanting them to think I was waiting for her. But I stayed at the exit until I saw Cordelia get safely into her car and start it. I waved, unsure if she would see it, then drove away.

I arrived at the clinic around eight thirty, hoping to get there before it got too busy. But the waiting room was already packed. I decided that, until told otherwise, I had been given carte blanche to investigate this however I saw fit. I started by wandering around the building.

The building did indeed appear to be split down the middle according to use—Catholics on the west side, godless Commies on the east, with the hallway as DMZ or purgatory, depending on your outlook.

There were stairs at either end of the building. I climbed the nearest one. There had been little renovation up here. The classrooms were still definitely classrooms, complete with original graffiti. Some of the rooms had chairs left in an empty circle or scribbling on the blackboards, attesting to fairly recent use. I walked through all the rooms—only one had had any work done on it, the paint scraped; the other rooms remained peeled and blistered, institution green curling back to reveal a duller shade of institutional green.

I looked out one of the windows. This was the clinic side. It overlooked a scruffy lawn that was bordered with a wrought iron fence, then a broad, but cracked and broken sidewalk and the street. The wrought iron, a ragged army of spears, some missing their points, was embedded in a low stone wall, making the whole fence about eight feet tall. When it had been in its prime, freshly painted and scrubbed, the fence had probably been effective at keeping the world out of this school. Or the students in. But now it ended abruptly in the middle of the block. Whatever had completed it, either going farther down the street, or turning ninety degrees to enclose, was gone. The street beyond the fence was a slow side street, leading into the busier avenue that the front door opened onto.

I crossed the building to the window opposite. This side overlooked the parking lot. The white lines that used to order the cars were worn into illegibility. Beyond the lot, a few trees, one a stately oak, proud and defiant next to the shopworn asphalt, then a vacant lot.

“Can I help you?”

I turned to look. Sister Ann.

“No, as I’m sure my Aunt Greta has told you, I’m beyond help.”

“No one is beyond help. I heard footsteps over my head and came up to see who was here,” she explained.

“Have you gotten any strange letters?” I asked. I didn’t want to argue my state of helplessness.

“Me? No,” she replied. “What are you doing up here?”

“Me? Looking.” One terse answer deserved another. “Anyone on your staff? Any threatening phone calls?” I persisted.

She looked at me for a moment, as if making a decision.

“I’m not sure,” she finally said.

“Not sure?” I pushed.

“Nothing’s been said. Not that Sister Fatima would. But…I think it was last week. I saw her open a letter, her face turned white and she hastily threw it into a trash can. Could that be one of your letters?”

“Where is Sister Fatima now? Will she talk to me?”

“I doubt it. She didn’t talk to me. Sister Fatima is in her seventies and, bless her, lives in a more genteel age.”

I nodded my head, remembering some of the older nuns I had met. I wondered why Sister Ann had decided to answer my questions.

“Anyone else?” I asked.

“Not that I know of,” she replied. “But…I did get a strange phone call a few days ago.”

“Strange? How?”

“It wasn’t threatening, at least, I didn’t feel threatened. But it was someone who knew my name, because he used it. Then he asked, ‘Why did you become a nun?’ and hung up.”

“That’s all?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“Why are you answering my questions?” I couldn’t imagine her wanting to be in the same room with me. Not after Aunt Greta’s spiel.

“I disapprove of poison-pen letters. I hope you can do something about them.” She turned to go.

“Thank you, Sister.”

She smiled at me, then walked out of the room. Probably pleasantly surprised that I knew how to say thank you, after hearing the Greta Robedeaux version of my life.

I went back downstairs. The daycare center was now full and squalling. People were spilling out of the clinic waiting room into the hallway. No way to see Cordelia now.

I went out the back door. There was a walkway that led only to a fringe of weeds and wild shrubs demarcating the property line. The lawn of the clinic, though not likely to win any garden awards, at least showed signs of having been mowed in recent memory. Unlike the lot behind it. Anything could be concealed in the dense greenery of that back lot.

Then I noticed windows at ground level. A basement? The first floor was high enough that the building might have been able to fit a basement between it and the barely belowground water table. I hadn’t seen any entrance on the first floor. I circled the building looking for a way in. No entrance appeared. It would have been very easy to break in through just about any of the windows. Several of them had broken panes and most had frames that looked warped and rotten. But I decided to try the legitimate approach first.

I re-entered the back door. And, since I was looking for it, found a door tucked under the back staircase. With a lock on it. Being bolder about breaking and entering while under an ill-lit staircase than out in a yard in daylight, I pulled on the lock to see how secure it was or if the hasp was as ready to fall out as it looked. Whoever was in charge of locking locks had settled for verisimilitude. The lock wasn’t really closed. I pocketed it to make sure no one would decide for a more realistic effect while I was in the basement.

It took a little fumbling to find the light switch. One bulb for the stairs, a few more scattered through the basement. As basements go, it bordered on the dismal—a dirt floor and that pervasive damp feeling being below ground always has when you’re this close to sea level. The ceiling was low, only a few inches above my head and covered with spiderwebs. Some of the beams and pipes were low enough to give me a headache if I wasn’t careful. Squat brick columns were placed about every fifteen feet. I wandered around for a bit, careful to stay near the sporadic light that came through the dirt-caked windows or from the few electric bulbs. If I were a rat, I’d want to live in just this sort of basement. It was too damp for storage. Perhaps a mushroom grower’s dream. That was about all.

I headed back upstairs, putting the lock back on and carefully not locking it. There wasn’t anything to steal down there.

“Micky Knight. What are you doing here?”

I turned to look at a white uniformed figure. Millie Donnalto. She lived with Hutch Mackenzie, Joanne’s partner.

“Millie. Would you believe that Hutch hired me to check up on you?”

“Absolutely not,” she replied as she gave me a big hug.

“How about that I’ve become hopelessly smitten with you and follow you everywhere?”

“Less likely,” she laughed and gave me an extra squeeze to prove she wasn’t worried about any lascivious behavior on my part.

I liked Millie. Because even though she’s totally straight, she was fearless about hugging a notorious lesbian like me in a public hallway. Even one which nuns and the like walked about in.

“Working,” I replied as she released me. “Gotten any nasty letters lately?”

“Oh, that,” she said. “My first, two days ago. Ugly things.”

“Can I see it?”

“Sorry, I threw it in the trash,” she answered.

“Too bad. Are you willing to tell me what it said?”

“Sure. But not here. Follow me.”

Millie led me down the hall into the storage room for the clinic. She shut the door behind us.

“Little ears from daycare,” she explained.

“Graphic, I take it.”

“Obscene, in that dirty sense. Anyway,” she continued, “it went on, at length, about my…uh…preference for men with large genitals.”

“So whoever sent it has laid eyes on Hutch,” I commented. Hutch was at least six foot six and linebacker-sized.

“I guess. It’s not a thought I like. I know Bernie, our administrative assistant, got one, because I saw her burn it.”

“Did she say anything about it? Was it poor dot-matrix?”

“Yes and yes. She lives with her mother. She’s nineteen and saving for school. Her comment was something like, ‘How could someone think my mother and I…’ Then it burned down and she had to drop it.”

I nodded. I would ask Bernie about it.

“Nasty stuff,” she commented. “It leaves a cold feeling, like someone is watching us.” She shook her head. “It means it’s not just random, doesn’t it?”

“Probably. It wouldn’t hurt to play it safe for a while. Don’t go anywhere alone around here, leave in groups. You know the drill,” I said.

“Yes, unfortunately. This has me nervous, I don’t mind telling you. And I’m glad you’re around.”

“Thanks.” I smiled.

The door swung open. Nurse Betty entered. She looked from me to Millie, then down to the floor, a slight blush spreading over her cheeks. I wondered how my reputation had spread so quickly.

“Uh…I’m sorry…I have to get…there they are,” Betty stammered, heading for a box of rubber gloves stacked on one of the shelves.

“Thanks, Millie,” I said. “Be sure to say hi to Hutch for me. Perhaps you can answer a few questions.” I turned to Nurse Betty.

Millie gave me a wink behind blushing Nurse Betty’s back and, taking the gloves for her, went out the door. To complete her discomfort, I shut the door.

“Have you gotten any obscene letters?”

“I’m sorry, I’m busy now,” she said, flustered at the closed door.

“You could have answered me in the time it took to tell me you’re busy.”

She looked at the door and then at me standing next to it.

“Yes, I have,” she finally said, probably unwilling to get close enough to me to get through the door.

“Do you still have it?”

“I gave it to Cor…Dr. James,” she answered, going the formal route.

I remembered the letter from the ones Cordelia had shown me. It was to Peterson, R.N., and commented on her insatiable sexual appetite, accusing her of sleeping with a different man every night.

“Any truth to it?” I asked.

“No, of course not.”

“No?” I questioned.

“No,” she responded angrily. “It’s bad enough having that…that sort of trash. I don’t need your ugly accusations now.”

“Not accusing, just asking,” I laconically replied. I noticed a small cross around her neck.

“No, I do not sleep around. And I’m sure you’ll find this hard to believe, but I believe in the sanctity of marriage and I’m…” Then she ran out of indignation and blushed again.

“A virgin?” I supplied.

“I’m sure you find it amusing,” she retorted defensively.

“No. I think the important thing is for people to choose what’s right for themselves,” I said. “Without ridicule or intolerance from those who disagree.”

“Oh,” she replied. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m just upset. Those accusations…” and she trailed off.

“Are pretty nasty. Have you gotten any phone calls?”

“No, only the one letter.”

I opened the door.

“Thank you,” I said as she walked through it.

“You’re welcome,” she replied, polite enough to really be a virgin.

I caught Bernice, the administrative assistant, between patients and paperwork. She confirmed Millie’s story and added another letter, which she had also burned. She also confirmed that the letter was right about her living with her mother. And like Cordelia, she’d gotten a phone call. Her name, then “Motherfucker,” was all he had said before hanging up. She explained the phones to me. Each of the doctors, Cordelia and two others who were part time, had a phone in their offices with a private line. There was another phone on her desk and one in the back. Only the main phone number was listed. Cordelia and Dr. Bowen had both gotten calls on their private lines.

Dr. Bowen wasn’t in, but I had seen the letter to her among those Cordelia had shown me. It suggested that her husband was divorcing her because he’d caught her fondling her son while giving him a bath.

Bernice told me that Dr. Bowen was indeed going through a nasty divorce. And she added that the idea of Jane Bowen being a child molester was absurd.

I thanked Bernie, as she insisted I call her, and let her get back to her work.

The waiting room was starting to empty since it was lunchtime. I had seen Cordelia once crossing between examining rooms, but she hadn’t seen me. I wandered back out into the main hallway, planning to hang around and chat for a moment with her. At least let her see me hard at work.