Shocking Pink (20 page)

A
ndie’s morning had all the makings of a blockbuster disaster flick. Because of the previous night’s indulgences, she’d overslept. When she had finally made it out to the kitchen, she’d started the coffeemaker but forgotten to put on the carafe; in her rush, she had run two pairs of new hose and her neighbor’s cat had left a dead bird on her doorstep, smack-dab on top of the morning paper. To finish it all off, somebody was at her front door.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” she called, trying to walk, put on her earrings and fasten her belt all at the same time. She got the belt taken care of just as she reached the door.

A greeting died on her lips as she swung the door open. Two men stood on her front porch. Both wore dark sunglasses, sport coats and jeans. One was the size of a house, with flaming red hair. The other, nearly as big, had dark hair and a jaw that looked as if it had been carved from granite. Neither smiled.

The morning had just taken a turn for the worse.

“Dr. Andie Bennett?” the dark-haired one asked.

“Yes.” Andie cocked her head slightly, recognition plucking at her. She found something familiar about the man. Something about the way he held himself, the shape of his head. The sound of his voice.

The man flashed a badge. “Police. Detectives Raphael and O’Shea. Could we speak with you a moment?”

Detective Raphael. Nick Raphael.

Her mouth dropped, and he smiled, though the curving of his lips lacked warmth. “Hello, kid.”

“Detective…this is a surprise.” She shook her head. “It’s been a long time.”

“It has. May we come in?”

“Of course.” She stepped aside and swung the door wider. “I’m afraid I don’t have much time. I’m running late this morning.”

“This won’t take long.”

She led them to the living room. Interestingly, O’Shea was the curious one, openly looking around, checking her place out. Nick, as if indifferent to where she lived and what she had become, kept his gaze trained straight ahead, not even glancing slightly to the right or left.

She motioned towards the sofa, offering them a seat. Nick refused, so she stayed on her feet as well. O’Shea sat down and began idly thumbing through a magazine.

Then she realized what they were doing—good cop, bad cop. O’Shea might look like a linebacker with an attention disorder, but she would bet he missed nothing.

But why were they here?
She looked at Nick Raphael. “Am I in some sort of trouble?”

“Depends on your point of view. Last night one of your patients was involved in a homicide. We need to ask you some questions, that’s all.”

She stared at him, stunned, then glanced from one detective to the other, waiting for the
Just kidding!
It didn’t come.

“One of my patients?” she said. “You’re sure?”

“Martha Pierpont.”

“Oh my God.” She brought a hand to her mouth and took an involuntary step backward, a dizzying sense of déjà vu sweeping over her. “He killed her,” she whispered. “He did it, didn’t he?”

“Who, Dr. Bennett?”

“Her husband, of course. He killed Martha.”

Nick and his partner exchanged glances. Nick cleared his throat. “No, Dr. Bennett. She killed him.”

Andie took another step backward, feeling behind her for a chair. She found it and sat down.
Martha Pierpont? Killed her husband?

Impossible.

Andie lifted her gaze to the detective’s. “Is this some sort of joke?”

“No ma’am, she’s in jail.”

“There must be some mistake. Martha Pierpont couldn’t muster enough rage to chew out a rude salesperson.”

Nick took out a pocket-size notebook and a pen. “And you know this from working with her?”

“Yes, I—” Andie swallowed the words, realizing what she was doing. “Martha and I have worked together, yes.”

“For just over a year?”

“Just under, actually.”

“Is it true that Edward Pierpont was an abusive husband?”

“I’m sorry, Detectives, but that information is confidential.”

“Is it true she was seeing you to help her deal with her lousy marriage? With her rage?”

“Again, confidential.”

Nick’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you referring to doctor-patient privilege?”

Andie bristled at the sarcasm in his tone. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I am.”

“Convenient.”

“I don’t much care for your tone, Detective.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t much care for your line of work.”

She stood and motioned toward the front door. “If that’s all?”

“It’s not.” He smiled again, a tight twisting of his lips that was more grimace than smile. “According to your patient, her husband was an abusive, violent son of a bitch. Last night, she says, he came after her. Threatened to kill her, in fact.” Nick Raphael leveled Andie with an icy stare. “Does that sound about right?”

Andie felt sick. “You seem to have already formed an opinion, Detective, so why don’t you tell me?”

He ignored her sarcasm. “Anyway, according to Mrs. Pierpont, she was frightened for her life. She needed to protect herself. So she got her husband’s handgun and shot him six times—”

“Five,” Bobby corrected. “One bullet missed its mark.”

“Five times?” Andie whispered, sitting back down. “Are you sure?”

“She shot him in the genitals, Dr. Bennett. Believe me, she’s not the first wife to take aim at that particular spot, she won’t be the last. That’s textbook crime of passion, Dr. Bennett.”

“I wouldn’t know about that.”

“Was Mr. Pierpont sexually abusive to his wife?”

“That’s confidential.”

“She shot off his face, too. Also classic crime of passion.”

“Half his face,” Bobby corrected again. “She probably missed. ’Course, it was kind of hard to tell, what with all the blood and brains and stuff.”

They were toying with her now, trying to upset her into revealing something she ethically could not. Something she would not. She got to her feet once more. “I’m sorry, Detectives, but I’m out of time.”

“Just a couple more questions. When was your last session with her?”

“A day and a half ago.”

“At that time, did she say anything to you that would lead you to believe she meant to kill her husband?”

“No.”

“And before that?”

Martha’s words rang in her head.
I want to kill him! I want to kill him, and kill him, and kill him!

But to say the words was one thing, to act on them another. Martha Pierpont did not have what it took to kill somebody.

Andie believed that with every fiber of her being.

She shoved her hands into her pockets so the detectives couldn’t see that they trembled. “As I explained already, I’m unable to discuss anything having to do with my treatment of Martha Pierpont. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m late.”

“Are you sure there’s nothing else you’d like to tell us?”

“There’s nothing else I can tell you, Detective. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry, my ass.”

“Nick—”

Nick ignored his partner’s warning and took a step toward her, his already hard mouth thinning more. “Is it fun hiding behind your so-called ethics? How does it feel to know you help criminals get back out on the street? How does it feel to know you’re part of the reason crime pays.”

She met his gaze. “
Criminals
like Martha Pierpont? Please.”

“She murdered her husband, Dr. Bennett. She shot him at point-blank range, five times. Yes, she’s a criminal.”

Andie’s cheeks heated. “So what are you saying, Detective Raphael? That my patient was not acting in self-defense? That she killed her husband in cold blood?”

“Let’s just say it wouldn’t surprise me, Dr. Bennett.”

A furious retort jumped to her lips; she swallowed it. He wanted her to get angry. He wanted her to hotly defend Martha and perhaps let something slip that he would twist to use against the woman. “You’ve changed, Detective. No longer the Boy Scout, I see. You’ve become just like those other detectives. The ones who had no heart.” She crossed to the door, opened it and swung it wide. “Good day.”

Bobby stood and the two men crossed to the door. Nick took a step through, then stopped and turned back to her. He handed her his card. “If you think of anything that’s not…privileged, give us a call. We’d appreciate it.”

F
or long moments after the two detectives left, Andie gazed at the card in her hand, reminded of the past, so clearly it took her breath. She ran her thumb across the slightly raised printing, remembering her first meeting with Nick Raphael and how different he had been from the other detectives, the ones who’d had so much fun at her expense.

She could hardly believe that the tough, emotionless man she had just spoken to was the same one who had helped her all those years ago, the same man who had used his body to shield her from the gruesome sight of Mrs. X, the same one who had jumped to her defense with the press, the one who had come to see her months after, just to make sure she was all right.

What had happened to Nick Raphael? Where had all that anger and hard-edged cynicism come from?

Sadness moved over her. All these years she had remembered him and his kindness to her. The memory had been special. Important. Like a spot of light in an otherwise frighteningly dark time.

Andie crossed to the front door and the sidelight to its right. She gazed out at the day, at the street. Even his face had changed, she thought. It, too, had become harder, leaner. Etched by time and hard-earned experience, by the loss of rosy-eyed youth.

Is that what he thought when he looked at her? she wondered. How did she compare to the girl he had known? Did he think her attractive? As attractive as she found him?

Andie shivered suddenly and rubbed her arms. The past didn’t matter. How Nick Raphael had or hadn’t changed didn’t matter. Martha Pierpont was in trouble, big trouble. Martha needed her.

Checking her watch, Andie turned away from the window and hurried to grab her purse and briefcase from the kitchen counter. She would call Missy from the car and have her begin canceling and rescheduling her morning appointments. Then she would give the police a call and see how soon she could get in to see her patient.

Less than an hour later, Andie faced Martha across a battered metal table at central lockup, a lump in her throat. Martha looked ten years older than she had just two days before; she looked as if she had walked down the corridors of hell and had lived to tell the tale.

Andie reached across the table and covered Martha’s hands with her own. They were as cold as ice. “Are you all right?”

“He’s dead. Edward is. Have you heard?”

“Yes, Martha,” Andie said gently, “I heard. Can you tell me what happened?”

The woman’s hands began to shake. “I shot him. I don’t know how many times, but more than once.”

I shot him.
Andie swallowed hard. Until now, until Martha uttered those words, Andie hadn’t believed it was true. “That’s what the police said.”

“You talked to the police?”

“They came to my home this morning.” Andie gave Martha’s hands a reassuring squeeze. “You needn’t worry, Martha, anything we’ve discussed during your sessions is privileged.”

“I didn’t mean to do it.” Her voice quivered. “I just wanted him to stop.”

Andie rubbed Martha’s hands trying to warm them. “Tell me what happened.”

Martha nodded, drew her hands away and dropped them into her lap. “We hadn’t even gotten home from the benefit when he started in on me. I’d never seen him that angry before. He was going to punish me, he said. When we got home. He was going to make me pay.”

“Punish you for what, Martha? Did he say?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I did something… I don’t know.”

“It’s all right,” said Andie reassuringly. “Go on.”

“As soon as he pulled into the drive, I jumped out of the car and ran for the house. I was going to lock myself in the bedroom. I got the front door open and stumbled inside. But he was right behind me.”

She struggled to continue, her eyes wide and blank with remembered terror. Andie found herself drawn into the horror of the scene.

“He…he caught me in the hallway. He knocked me down. I was pleading, begging for him to…to let me go. He got his hands around my neck and starting choking me.”

She brought a hand to her throat, and Andie saw the bruises. She shuddered. “I remember looking up at him and thinking that this was it, that he was going to do it. He was going to kill me. His face was red and his eyes…they were bulging out. The whole time he was yelling…screaming at me.”

She made a small, helpless motion with her hands. “I kicked and clawed. I broke free and scrambled to my feet. I ran to our bedroom, I got his gun. He was right behind me. I shouted for him to stop. To stop or I’d shoot.”

She met Andie’s eyes. “He laughed at me, Dr. Bennett. He said I didn’t have the guts to do it. He said I was a stupid, worthless cunt and he was going to kill me.

“He kept coming. He kept laughing. Something inside me… I couldn’t take it anymore. I…I pulled the trigger. Again. And again. And then he just…he stopped.”

Andie swallowed hard, stunned. Only yesterday, she would have sworn Martha incapable of such an act. But the human psyche could be pushed only so far before it snapped. “What happened next?”

“I don’t know, not exactly. Patti was screaming. And then there were people…police.” She bowed her head. “They brought me here.”

Martha looked around her as if remembering where she was, as if seeing once more the concrete walls, the guard, the steel door. “Now, my baby is all alone. And when I go to prison, she’ll have nobody.”

“Don’t think about that, Martha. You’ve got a good lawyer, from what I hear the best around, and from what you’re telling me you shot Ed in self-defense. The court recognizes spousal abuse as a legitimate reason for self-defense. If you feared for your life, you were only protecting yourself.”

“What if they don’t believe me?” Martha whispered, refusing to be consoled. “Everybody liked Edward. They won’t believe me. I’ll go to prison and Patti will be alone.” She started to cry.

Andie went around the table and put her arms around the woman, aware of the guard’s unwavering gaze. “I’ll testify. So will Patti. You’ve got bruises, Martha, that’s proof. You’re going to beat this thing. It’s going to be okay.”

“Will you go see her, Dr. Bennett? Will you go see Patti?” Martha drew away to look into Andie’s eyes, pleading. “I’m so worried about her. Will you just make sure she’s okay?”

Andie agreed, of course. She learned the child was staying with Martha’s mother, a widow who lived in an old neighborhood close to downtown. Andie called the woman, Rose Turpin was her name, introduced herself and asked if it would be convenient for her to come by. Mrs. Turpin not only said yes, she sounded near tears with gratitude. Andie told her she would be there as soon as she could, but that it might take a while.

A while turned out to be an understatement. It wasn’t until much later that afternoon that Andie was able to clear her schedule to visit the girl. By the time she pulled up in front of the grandmother’s bungalow, she was exhausted. She had seen back-to-back patients, trying to fit in as many as she could, not leaving herself time for anything but the quickest bathroom break. Raven had called three times, Julie twice, both to find out if she had heard about Mayor Pierpont’s murder.

Finally, Andie had squeezed out a minute to call her friends back; they had been shocked at Andie’s involvement, then hungry for details about the murder. It had been all she could do not to snap at them, particularly Raven. Her friend thought everything was a big joke and had cavalierly blown off Andie’s concerns over Martha’s actions and her own accountability.

Andie couldn’t blow off her own concerns. She felt responsible. She should have been able to do something to stop it. But she hadn’t, and now all that was left for her to do was try to help Martha and her family after the fact.

Andie turned off the engine and looked up at the house. A woman stood in the open doorway. Rose Turpin, no doubt. Martha’s mother.

Andie held up a hand in greeting, got out of the car and went up the walk.

“Thank you for coming,” the woman said, wringing her hands. “I’m so worried about Patti.”

Andie smiled reassuringly. “I hope I can help. I’ll try.”

“Come in.” Mrs. Turpin led her inside and to the front parlor. The drapes were drawn, the lights off. Lines of sunlight peeked around the edges of the heavy drapes.

Patti huddled in a big wing-back chair, completely closed in on herself, her knees drawn up to her chest, arms around her knees, face pressed to them. A sitting version of the fetal position.

Mrs. Turpin switched on a table lamp. “Patti,” she said gently, “there’s someone here to see you. Dr. Bennett.”

The girl didn’t acknowledge her in any way. Andie took another step into the room, carefully closing the distance between them. “Hello, Patti. I’m a friend of your mother’s. She asked me to look in on you.”

Patti glanced up. “Her shrink, you mean.”

“That’s right, I’m her therapist. But I think of her as a friend, too.” Andie took a seat on the sofa across from the teenager. “How are you, Patti?”

The girl shrugged.

“I saw your mother this morning.” Patti lifted her gaze for a moment, but only a moment. “She’s worried about you.”

Patti tightened her arms around her knees. “I’m okay,” she whispered, then drew in a deep, quivering breath. “Is she…is she all right?”

“She’s hanging in there.”

Patti said nothing. Andie waited, using the moments to study the girl. Andie had seen her out and about before; Martha had shown her photographs. But until this moment, Andie hadn’t realized how alike mother and daughter were. Patti had the same soft, pretty features, the same petite frame and gentle voice.

Andie cocked her head slightly. It surprised her that Edward Pierpont hadn’t turned any of his rage his daughter’s way.

It would have only been a matter of time, she thought, suppressing a sigh. Abusers like Ed Pierpont rarely excluded other family members, particularly ones of the same sex, from their violence and rage.

If it hadn’t happened already.

The thought caught her by surprise, though Andie couldn’t imagine why, it was so obvious. It troubled her. What if Edward had turned his fury on his daughter? What if Martha had become aware of the abuse and been forced out of her state of denial? It could explain Martha’s sudden courage; it could have facilitated her tenuous hold on reality to snap, the way she had described.

Andie clasped her hands in her lap. She was drawing conclusions without anything but hunches to back them up. But, if what she feared was true, Patti was going to need a friend.

Andie cleared her throat. “I thought maybe we could talk about what happened.”

“I told the police everything.”

“That’s not what I mean. I want to help you.”

“No one ca…” Her eyes filled, and she pressed her lips together. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I understand.”

“No, you don’t. You can’t.”

“I want to understand, then. I really do. Maybe if you explained it to me—”

“I said, I don’t want to talk about it!” Patti leaped to her feet and faced her, visibly shaking, hands clenched at her sides. She opened her mouth, as if to say something more, then turned and ran from the room. Moments later, Andie heard a door slam shut someplace in the house.

Andie shifted her gaze to Patti’s grandmother, hovering in the doorway, her expression devastated. “Give her time,” Andie said softly. “She’s had a terrible shock.”

The woman nodded, then met Andie’s gaze. “Would you like a glass of iced tea?”

“Thank you.” Andie stood. “That would be nice.”

Andie followed the older woman into the kitchen. Rose Turpin motioned to one of the high stools at the breakfast bar. “Have a seat.” Andie did and the woman got out a pitcher of tea and two tall glasses. She filled them both with ice and looked at Andie. “Lemon? Sweet?”

“Lemon, please.”

The woman nodded, got a lemon out of a fruit bowl on the counter and expertly wedged it. She filled the glasses and garnished both with a sprig of mint. She did it all with the mindless movements of someone who has done the same thing hundreds of times before.

“Here you go,” she said, setting the glass on the counter in front of Andie. “It’s sun tea.”

Andie sipped, murmured her appreciation and waited, knowing Martha’s mother had not asked her into the kitchen simply to offer a refreshment.

“The bail hearing’s set for tomorrow. Marti’s lawyer said that considering the circumstances, he believes the judge will set it at a reasonable amount.”

“She’ll be going home then? Or coming here?”

“Coming here. We thought it would be easier on Patti.” The grandmother looked down at her hands, wrapped around the sweating glass. “I don’t know what to do about Patti, Dr. Bennett. She won’t talk to me. She’s barely had anything to eat or drink since she got here.”

“It hasn’t been that long. Not even twenty-four hours ago her whole world turned upside down.”

The woman brought a trembling hand to her mouth, struggling, Andie saw, to compose herself. “What should I do about school? She still has about a month before summer vacation. I hate to have her miss, but to go ba…”

She let the thought trail off because she knew as well as Andie did, that Patti would not be going back to Thistledown High until next year. If then.

“Talk to her teachers. Get them to send home her lessons, hire a tutor if you have to.”

“All right.”

“Does she have any friends she can talk to?”

Rose shook her head. “Not the kind of friends who would understand. My granddaughter was a bit of a loner.”

Andie understood, probably better than most. When she had lost her best friends she, too, had been a loner. And she, too, had been forced to face terrible gossip with no one to talk to.

“How are you doing, Mrs. Turpin?”

“Me?”

“Yes. I know this has been a shock for you, too. It’s an awful thing.”

“I don’t believe she did it. Not my baby. Not my sweet Marti. She couldn’t have done that to Ed.” Rose looked at Andie as if challenging her to disagree.

Instead, Andie concurred. “I find it difficult to believe also. But the facts speak for themselves. She did do it.”