Inside Out (20 page)

“I’m calling about Lynn.”

“Is something wrong? Has something happened to ... to her?”

Nat could hear the coldness in Ruth’s voice quickly give way to anguish. The anguish of a mother desperately worried about her child’s welfare. But Nat could also hear the strain, the awkwardness, the discomfort.

“She’s asking for you, Ruth. She wants to see you.”

„ “I. . . can’t.”

“Of course you can.” It was all Nat could do to keep the rage out of her voice. She was particularly sensitive when it came to the issue of parents abandoning their children, be it a physical or an emotional abandonment. Lynn’s mother and father had managed both.

“I just left your daughter’s bedside, Ruth, so her words are very fresh in my mind. Her exact words were, ‘I want my mommy.’ ” Some of Nat’s anger was seeping into her voice. She couldn’t help it. It wasn’t that she was completely unsympathetic to the emotional turmoil Ruth Ingram had to have gone through in coping with—or
not
coping with—her child’s transsexualism. But, shame and embarrassment, and the wrath of her husband, were not good-enough reasons, in Nat’s opinion, for her to have cast her daughter from her life, to stay away even as her child lay in a hospital bed, fighting to stay alive, most likely disfigured for life.

There was silence on the other end of the line. For a few moments Nat thought Ruth Ingram had stealthily hung up the phone. But then she heard muted sounds. Stifled sobs.

Nat’s voice softened. “Please come see her, Ruth. I know you want to. Your husband doesn’t have to know. You don’t have to tell him anything you don’t want to.”

“You . . . don’t understand,” she managed through her sobs. “That’s not what matters. You
do
understand. You understand completely how much your child needs her mother.”

In the background, Nat picked up a man’s voice. “Who’s on the phone? What is it? What’s wrong?”

Ruth Ingram’s hand must have clamped over the mouthpiece because her response to the man Nat assumed was Lynn’s father, was muffled. “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong.”

“Ryth, I’m here at my office. You have the number. Call me back when you can talk.”

There was a distinct click. This time Ruth Ingram had indeed hung up.

Leaving Nat—and Ruth’s daughter—hanging in more ways than one.

“Superintendent? ”

Paul LaMotte was standing at Nat’s office door. The inmate clerk looked uneasy.

“What is it?”

“There’s—”

But before he could finish, her clerk was shoved aside by an imposing, irate middle-aged man dressed in a dark gray business suit.

Nat was up out of her chair, awash with outrage at this intrusion. “Who do you think—?”

“Scram,” the intruder ordered her clerk; his gaze, however, fixed solely on Nat.

Paul LaMotte’s eyes glinted with a fury Nat had never seen

in them before. For an instant, she worried that her clerk might act out on that wrath. Which was something she dearly wanted to avoid happening. If LaMotte attacked someone, even in self-defense—or in this case,
her
defense—his status as a trustee would have to be revoked and he’d end up back behind the wall.

“It’s okay, Paul. I know this man. You can go.”

Fler clerk remained wary. “You sure you don’t want me to get a coupla officers in here and boot this nutcase out?”

“I’m sure Councilman Milburne will behave himself,” she said with more confidence than she was actually feeling. Not that she was worried the politician would physically strike out at her. No politician was that stupid. And Milburne might be a lot of things, but he was certainly not ignorant. Nat was less sure about a verbal outburst, so her comment to her clerk was really meant as a directive to the furious councilman.

LaMotte hesitated for few seconds, but then exited, deliberately leaving her door open.

Milburne slammed it shut.

Nat was still on her feet, loath to sit back dowm while Milburne was standing. She thought it would be best if they remained on equal footing. Best for her, that was.

“You’ve got one hell of a nerve.”

Nat made no response, choosing instead to silently size up the politician. This was the first time she’d met the man, but she’d seen him on television and in the press. Daniel Milburne seemed not only to relish the spotlight, but to make concerted efforts to put himself in it.

Not that Milburne was particularly photogenic. The forty-seven-year-old councilman was not a good-looking man. His complexion was riddled with the pockmark scars of teenage acne. His nose was broad. His hairline had receded, leaving a formidable widow’s peak. His eyes were narrow slits, giving the impression that he was always squinting.

But no question Daniel Milburne was imposing. Especially when he pulled himself up to his full six-foot-three-inch height and expanded his broad ex-linebacker’s chest so that you could see the strain on the buttons of his suit jacket.

He billed himself as a man of the people. Strong on family values. Strong on drugs. Strong on crime. And a big-time proponent of the death penalty.

All this from a man who was on his third marriage. Who— according to the tabloids—was estranged from his son from his first marriage, and whose daughter from his second marriage had been in and out of drug rehab for several years. Milburne was also a man who had had quite a bit of trouble explaining away a recent candid photo that appeared in the Boston papers showing him having a cozy little dinner in a swanky South End restaurant with Louis Ferrara, a wealthy businessman rumored to be one of the key figures in organized crime in the Boston area.

“I don’t know what your game is, but you get one thing straight: Stay away from my wife. Don’t write her again, call her, or show up within ten miles of her, or I swear,” he said, jabbing a finger in Nat’s direction like it was a gun, “I’ll press charges against you for harassment and attempted blackmail before you can say—”

“Bethany Graham?”

“What the fuck is your problem?”

“I don’t have a problem, Dan,” she said blithely. “And I don’t know anything about any letters or phone calls.”

“Is that right? Next you’ll tell me it wasn’t you who approached my wife at the charity luncheon yesterday. Don’t waste your breath. I’ve got witnesses who IDed you.”

“I was there,” Nat admitted, seeing no reason to deny it. “But, again, I never wrote or phoned your wife.”

“So you explain how it is that she finds a letter in the mail last week addressed to
Bethany
Milburne. My wife goes by the name Beth, but her full name is Elizabeth, not
Bethany.
Everybody knows that. Everybody but you, that is.”

“What did the letter say?”

Milburne sneered.

“Humor me, Dan.”

He fiddled with his blue-and-red paisley tie. “Two lines: ‘I know who you are. And you tell your husband, so will everyone else if he doesn’t own up.’ ”

“No signature?”

“No, guess you forgot to sign it. And before you bother asking, there was no return address. It was on ordinary white letter-size paper. The warning and the address on the envelope were both typed on a word processor. She didn’t know what to make of it.”

“Didn’t she?”

Milburne ignored her question.

“Then yesterday morning she gets a phone call from a kid. Asking for ‘Bethany.’ When Beth started to explain that her name was Beth, this girl says to her, ‘Your husband is a bad man.’ Then she hangs up.”

“I’m not a
kid,
Mr. Milburne.”

“No, but maybe you have one. Or pretended to be one. All I do know is you’re the one who showed up at that luncheon on Saturday. Calling my wife ‘Bethany.’ Making up some cock-and-bull story about her mother coming from San Diego—”

“San Jose,” she quietly corrected him.

Milburne clenched his hands into meaty fists. “I’ve had about as much of this shit as Pm gonna take. So now,
I’m
warning
you”

Nat flashed on that vile drawing, wondering if this wasn’t his first warning to her. How far would Milburne go to protect his career? To protect his hide?

eighteen

All the women knew I was a favorite target. Derision, revulsion, mind-games, unjust disciplinary action. I was getting it from all sides—figuratively and
literally.
When it comes down to it, there is no one I can risk trusting.

L. I.

WHEN THE NURSE at Mercy informed Nat that Suzanne Holden had a visitor, she immediately assumed it must be Leo.

She was wrong. It wasn’t Leo but Ross Varda sitting in the orange plastic chair beside the inmate’s bed.

“You look surprised,” he said.

Not that it would take a psychiatrist to discern that.

“Suzanne had one of the nurses call me and ask me to come in to see her,” Varda explained. “My prison credentials got me past the officer on duty outside.”

“I didn’t know the two of you knew each other.”

“Suzanne was in one of my therapy groups at Grafton for a short time.”

Varda got to his feet, offering her the chair. She turned down the offer which left them both standing.

“Suzanne has been telling me about her terrible ordeal. That someone jumped her—”

“She doesn’t believe me,” Suzanne said plaintively. “No one believes me.”

“Now, now, Suzanne,” Dr. Varda soothed.

“No one’s discounting your story,” Nat said. “The police are doing a very thorough investigation.”

A flicker of hope briefly lit her eyes. “Leo will prove I’m telling the truth. I know he will. He has to.”

Just hearing his name uttered from her lips caused Nat’s stomach to clench.

“You look tired, Suzanne. Why don’t you try to sleep?” The psychiatrist glanced at Nat. “She says she hasn’t slept in the past two nights.”

“The nurse wouldn’t even give me a damn Tylenol
p.m.
It says in big red letters on my chart:
no meds.
Like what? I’m gonna OD on fucking acetaminophen.”

“I’ll go have a word with her,” Dr. Varda said. He paused for a moment at the door. “Don’t stay too long, Superintendent. Suzanne really does need to rest.”

As soon as he left, Nat sat down in the chair he’d vacated.

“I got a visit today from Daniel Milburne, Suzanne.”

She gave Nat a blank look.

“He was very angry. He told me a woman has been threatening him. She sent a letter to his wife a few days ago. Yesterday, she phoned her. He thinks I’m behind the threats.”

Suzanne shrugged.

“This woman called his wife ‘Bethany.’ Which is interesting because she hasn’t used that name in a long time.”

Suzanne looked away.

“In fact, hardly anyone knows she used to go by the name Bethany. But you knew, right?”

Suzanne continued avoiding eye contact. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Lynn never talked to you about Bethany?”

“No.” Suzanne snapped out her response a little too quickly. “Bethany Graham?”

“No.”

“This is a real puzzle, Suzanne. Because very few people other than me know about Bethany Graham. And since I wasn’t the one who threatened her—”

“It wasn’t me. Shit. First you accuse me of using again. Now you’re trying to pin some blackmail scheme on me—”

“I didn’t call it blackmail.” But, of course Nat was thinking, drugs weren’t free.

“Whatever. It wasn’t me. That’s all I know.”

“Well, what worries me is that Milburne might think you know more than that. He might think Lynn did talk to you about Bethany. And I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want anyone talking about his wife. Lynn. Her folks. You. Anyone.”

Suzanne wet her dry lips as she studied Nat closely. “You think he’s the one put the jump on me and shot me up? So you believe I’m telling the truth?”

“It’s not a matter of what I believe. We need proof.” “Look,” she said pleadingly, “I didn’t see who did it. I swear.” “And you have no idea who it might have been? Or why someone would do that to you?”

“No,” she maintained stubbornly. Or, Nat wondered, was it fear more than stubbornness?

Nat’s frustration was mounting. “So when you learned that Lynn was violently assaulted and nearly killed last week, Mil-burne’s name didn’t pop into your mind?”

“I told you, I don’t know him,” she snapped.

“Whose name did pop into your head?” Nat pounced right back.

She shut her eyes. “No one.”

“I don’t believe you. His name popped into your head again just now when I asked you that question.”

“Leave me alone.”

“You could have died, Suzanne. Hutch says you were right on the brink when he found you.” Nat paused deliberately before adding, “If someone did this to you, it’s very likely you were meant to die.”

She clamped her hands up to her ears. “Stop. Can’t you just stop?”

“I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Her eyes flew open and she fixed Nat with a disquieting stare. “Don’t you?”

Nat was stunned by her words. “Suzanne—”

“If I’m out of the picture, Leo won’t be torn—”

Nat gripped her shoulders hard enough that she winced. But she didn’t let go. She was too angry. “Listen to me, Suzanne. If you love someone, the last thing in the world you want to do is cause them grief and suffering. If Leo’s torn”—and Nat did believe he was feeling pulled between them—“then he’s got to sort it out for himself. If what he and I share isn’t strong enough to hold him, then . . . that’s how it is. It has nothing—do you hear me
?—nothing
to do with you. It’s between me and Leo.”

“Fine.”

“So let’s leave Leo out of this, okay?”

“Okay, okay. Pm sorry.”

Nat dropped her hands to her sides. “You know there’ll have to be a disciplinary hearing when you’re out of the hospital.” “You can’t send me back to Grafton. You can’t. I’ve been clean for so long. Fd never do something so stupid. Especially not now. Not now when everything’s starting to come together for me.”

Everything.
Did that include Leo? So much for Nat wanting to leave him out of this.

“Please, you can’t send me back,” she pleaded. “I’ll die if I go back.”

“You have a greater risk of dying if you don’t help us nail the bastard.”