The Beginning (16 page)

“But who cares, when it comes right down to it? No, don't say it. I'm talking. It feels rather good actually. So you see, no matter what else the bastard did, he did accomplish some good.

“Oh, yeah, Mr. Quinlan, you wanted to know all the juicy details about who did what to me in the sanitarium. You're dying to know who did it, who put me there. Well, it wasn't Dr. Beadermeyer or my husband. It was my father.”

And how, she wondered, could she ever get vengeance on a dead man? She was off in a flash, running faster than he'd thought she could, dust kicking up behind her sneakers.

She was at the car when he jumped to his feet. He didn't think, just sprinted as fast as he could toward the Oldsmobile. He saw her stop by the driver's door and aim quickly, then he felt the dirt spray his jeans leg as a bullet kicked up not a foot from his right boot. Then she was inside. The car engine revved. She was fast.

He watched her throw the car in reverse, watched her back it out of the narrow driveway onto the small country road. She did it well, coming close to that elm tree but not touching the paint job on the car, which was nice of her because the government was never pleased when it had to repaint bureau cars.

He was running after her again, knowing he had to do something, but not knowing what, just accepting that he was a fool and an incompetent ass and running, running.

Her father had beat her and fondled her and humiliated her in the sanitarium? He'd been the one to put her there in the first place?

Why?

It was nuts, the whole thing. And that's why she hadn't told him. Her father was dead, couldn't be grilled, and the whole thing did sound crazy.

“Rein in, Quinlan,” Savich shouted from behind him. “Come on back. She's well and truly gone.”

He turned to see Savich run up behind him. “Last time I checked your speed on the track you couldn't beat an accelerating Olds.”

“Yeah, yeah. Okay, it's all my fault. You don't have to say it.”

“There's hardly any need to say it. How did she get your gun?”

Quinlan looked at his longtime friend, shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans, and said in the most bewildered voice Savich had ever heard from him, “I was holding her against me, trying to make her understand that I did what I had to do and I wasn't betraying her, really I wasn't, and I thought perhaps she was coming around.

“Looks like I really screwed up on this one. I never felt a thing. Nothing. Then she told me she was pointing the gun in my gut. She was.”

“I don't think I like having a partner who's so besotted that he can't even keep his own gun in his holster.”

“Is that some sort of weird sexual innuendo?”

“Not at all. Our cell phones are inside. I hope she didn't take them.”

“She never went inside the cottage.”

“Thank God for small favors. It's about time we got one.”

Quinlan said, “Are your connections good enough to get us another one?”

“If not, I'll call my aunt Paulie. Between her and Uncle Abe, they've got more connections than the pope.”

She knew James would come here, maybe not immediately, but soon enough. She also knew she had time. Too bad she hadn't thought to take their cell phones. That would have really slowed him up. But she had enough of a head start.

She pulled the Oldsmobile into an empty parking spot off Cooperton Street. She locked the door and walked slowly, wearing James's jacket, which should make her look very hip, toward number 337, the gracious Georgian red-brick home on Lark Street. Lights were on downstairs. She prayed Noelle was there and not the police or the FBI.

She huddled low and ran along the tap line of shrubbery toward the downstairs library. Her father's office. The room where she'd first seen her father strike her mother. That had been ten years ago. Ten years. What had happened to those years? College, with nightly phone calls and more visits than she cared to make, even unexpected visits during the week to make sure her father wasn't beating her mother.

She'd sensed the festering anger in her father at her interference, but his position, more highly visible by the year, his absolute horror of anyone finding out that he was a wife beater, kept him in line, at least most of the time. As it turned out, she found out that if he was pissed off, he would beat her mother as soon as Sally left to go back to college. Not that her mother would ever have told her.

On one visit she'd forgotten a sweater and had gone quickly back home to get it. She'd opened the front door with her key and walked into the library, in on a screaming match with her mother cowering on the floor and her father kicking her.

“I'm calling the police,” she said calmly from the doorway. “I don't care what happens. This will stop and it will stop now.”

Her father froze, his leg in mid-kick, and stared at her in the doorway. “You damned little bitch. What the hell are you doing here?”

“I'm calling the police now. It's over.” She walked back into the foyer to the phone that sat on the small Louis XVI table, beneath a beautiful gilt mirror.

She'd dialed 9-1- when her hand was grabbed. It was her mother. It was Noelle, and she was crying, begging her not to call the police, begging, on her knees, begging and begging, tears streaming down her face.

Sally stared down at the woman who was clutching at her knees, tears of pain grooving down her cheeks. Then she looked at her father, who was standing in the doorway to the library, his arms crossed over his chest, his ankles crossed, tall and slender, beautifully dressed in cashmere and wool, his hair thick and dark, with brilliant gray threading through it, looking like a romantic lead in the movies. He was watching her.

“Go ahead, do it,” he said. “Do it and just see what your mother will do when the cops get here. She'll say you're a liar, Sally, that you're a jealous little bitch, that you don't want her to have my affection, that you've always resented her, resented your own mother.

“Isn't that why you're coming home all the time from college? Go ahead, Sally. Do it. You'll see.” He never moved, just spoke in that intoxicating, mesmerizing voice of his, one that had swayed his colleagues and clients for the past thirty years. He kept a hint of a Southern drawl, knowing it added just the right touch when he deftly slurred the word he wanted to emphasize.

“Please, Sally, don't. Don't. I'm begging you. You can't. It would ruin everything. I can't allow you to. It's dangerous. It's all right, Sally. Just don't call, please, don't call.”

She gave her mother and her father one last look and left. She did not return until after her graduation seven months later.

Maybe her father was beating her mother less simply because Sally wasn't coming home anymore.

Funny that she hadn't been able to remember that episode until now. Not until—not until she'd gone to The Cove and met James and her life had begun to seem like a life again, despite the murders, despite her father's phone calls, despite everything.

She must really be nuts. The man had betrayed her. There was no way around that. He'd saved her too, but that didn't count, it was more of the job. She still marveled at her own simplicity. He was FBI. He'd tracked her down and lied to her.

She huddled down even more as she neared the library windows. She looked inside. Her mother was reading a book. She was sitting in her husband's favorite wing chair, reading a book. She looked exquisite. Well, she should. The bastard had been dead for a good three weeks. No more bruises. No more chance of bruises.

Still, Sally waited. No one else was in the house.

 

“YOU'RE
sure she's going home, Quinlan?”

“Not home. She's going to her mother's house. Not her husband's house. You know my intuition, my gut. But to be honest about it, I know her. She feels something for her mother. That's the first place she'll go. I'll bet you both her father and her husband put her in that sanitarium in the first place. Why? I haven't the foggiest idea. I do know, though, that her father was a very evil man.”

“I assume you'll tell me what you mean by that later?”

“Drive faster, Savich. The house is number three thirty-seven on Lark. Yeah, I'll tell you, but not now. Let's get going.”

 

“HELLO,
Noelle.”

Noelle St. John slowly lowered her novel to her lap. Just as slowly, she looked up at the doorway to see her daughter standing there, wearing a man's jacket that came nearly to her knees.

Her mother didn't move, stared at her. When she was younger, her mother was always holding her, hugging her, kissing her. She wasn't moving now. Well, if she believed Sally was crazy, then it made sense. Did Noelle think her daughter was here to shoot her? She said in a soft, frightened voice, “Is it really you, Sally?”

“Yes. I got away from the sanitarium again. I got away from Dr. Beadermeyer.”

“But why, darling? He takes such good care of you. Doesn't he? Why are you looking at me like that, Sally? What's wrong?”

Then nothing mattered, because her mother was smiling at her. Her mother jumped to her feet and ran to her, enfolding her in her arms. Years were instantly stripped away. She was small again. She was safe. Her mother was holding her. Sally felt immense gratitude. Her mother was here for her, as she'd prayed she would be.

“Mama, you've got to help me. Everyone is after me.”

Noelle stood back, smoothing Sally's hair, running her hands over her pale face. She hugged her again, whispering against her cheek. “It's all right, sweetheart. I'll take care of everything. It's all right.” Noelle was shorter than her daughter, but she was the mother and Sally was the child, and to Sally she felt like a goddess.

She let herself be held, breathed in her mother's fragrance, a scent she'd worn from Sally's earliest memories. “I'm sorry, Noelle. Are you all right?”

Her mother released her, stepping back. “It's been difficult, what with the police and not knowing where you were and worrying incessantly. You should have called me, Sally. I worried so much about you.”

“I couldn't. I imagined that the police had your phone bugged. They could have traced me.”

“I don't think there's anything wrong with the phones. Surely they wouldn't dare plant devices like that in your father's home?”

“He's dead, Noelle. They'd do anything. Now, listen. I need you to tell me the truth. I do know that I was here the night that he was murdered. But I don't remember anything about it. Only violent images, but no faces. Only loud voices, but no person to go with the voices.”

“It's all right, love. I didn't murder your father. I know that's why you ran away. You ran away to protect me, as you tried to protect me for all those years.

“Do you believe me? Why would you think I'd know anything about it? I wasn't here myself. I was with Scott, your husband. He's so worried about you. All he can talk about is you and how he prays you'll come home. Please tell me you believe me. I wouldn't kill your father.”

“Yes, Noelle, I believe you—although if you had shot him I would have applauded you. But no, I never really believed you did. But I can't remember. I plain can't remember, and the police and the FBI, they all believe I know everything that happened that night. Won't you tell me what happened, Noelle?”

“Are you well again, Sally?”

She stared at her mother. She sounded vaguely frightened. Of her? Of her own daughter? Did she think she would murder her because she was insane? Sally shook her head. Noelle might look a bit frightened, but she also looked exquisite in vivid emerald lounging pajamas. Her light hair was pinned up with a gold clip. She wore three thin gold chains. She looked young and beautiful and vital. Perhaps there was some justice after all.

“Listen to me, Noelle,” Sally said, willing her mother to believe her. “I wasn't ever sick. Father put me in that place. It was all a plot. He wanted me out of the way. Why? I don't know. Maybe just plain revenge for the way I'd thwarted him for the past ten years. Surely you must have guessed something. Doubted him when he told you. You never came to see me, Mama, never.”

“Your father told me, and you're right, I was suspicious, but then Scott broke down—he was in tears—and he told me about all the things you'd done, how you simply weren't yourself anymore and there hadn't been any choice but to put you in the sanitarium. I met Dr. Beadermeyer. He assured me you would be well cared for.

“Oh, Sally, Dr. Beadermeyer told me it would be better if I didn't see you yet, that you were blaming me for so many things, that you hated me, that you didn't want to see me, that seeing me would make you worse and he feared you'd try to commit suicide again.”

But Sally wasn't listening to her. She felt something prickle on her skin, and she knew, she
knew
he was close. She also knew that her mother wasn't telling her the truth about the night her father was murdered. Why? What had really happened that night? There was no time now.

Yes, James was close. There was no unnatural sound, no real warning, yet she knew.

“Do you have any money, Noelle?”

“A few dollars, Sally, but why? Why? Let me call Dr. Beadermeyer. He's already called several times. I've got to protect you, Sally.”

“Good-bye, Noelle. If you love me—if you've ever loved me—please keep the FBI agent talking as long as you can. His name is James Quinlan. Please, don't tell him I was here.”

“How do you know the name of an FBI agent?”

“It's not important. Please don't tell him anything, Noelle.”

 

“MRS.
St. John, we saw the car parked on Cooperton. Sally was here. Is she still here? Are you hiding her?”

Noelle St. John stared at his ID, then at Savich's. Finally, after an eternity, she looked up and said, “I haven't seen my daughter for nearly seven months, Agent Quinlan. What car are you talking about?”

“A car we know she was driving, Mrs. St. John,” Savich said.

“Why are you calling my daughter by her first name? Indeed, Sally is her nickname. Her real name is Susan. Where did you get her nickname?”

“It doesn't matter,” Quinlan said. “Please, Mrs. St. John, you must help us. Would you mind if we looked through your house? Her car is parked down the street. She's probably hiding here in the house waiting for us to leave before she comes out.”

“That's ridiculous, gentlemen, but look to your hearts' content. None of the help sleep here, so the house is empty. Don't worry about frightening anyone.” She smiled at them and walked with her elegant stride back into the library.

“Upstairs first,” Quinlan said.

They went methodically from room to room, Savich waiting in the corridor as Quinlan searched, to ensure that Sally couldn't slip between adjoining rooms and elude them. When Quinlan opened the door to a bedroom at the far end of the hall, he knew immediately that it had been hers. He switched on the light. It wasn't a frilly room with a pink or white canopied bed and posters of rock stars plastering the walls. No, three of the walls were filled with bookshelves, all of them stuffed with books. On the fourth wall were framed awards, writing awards beginning with ones for papers she'd written in junior high school on the U.S. dependence on foreign oil and the gasoline crisis, on Saddam's quasi victory in Desert Storm. There was a paper that had won the Idleberg Award and appeared in the
New York Times.
The high school awards were for papers that ran more toward literary themes.

Then they stopped, somewhere around the end of high school—no more awards, no more recognition for excellent short stories or essays, at least no more here in this bedroom. She'd gone to Georgetown University, majored in English. Again, no more sign that she'd ever written another word or won another prize.

“Quinlan, what are you doing? Is she in there or not?”

He was shaking his head when he rejoined Savich. He said, “Sally isn't here. Sure, she was here, but she's long gone. Somehow she knew we were close. How, I don't know, but she knew. Let's go, Savich.”