The room is cold and dark; the blinds on the one window have been closed to keep people from peeking in. I flip the light switch and the first thing I notice is the files I was wading through yesterday still stacked atop Nelson’s desk. I shoot a couple of pictures of the area, set the camera down, and then go about returning the files I looked through yesterday to the drawer. It takes two loads to get them all in and unbeknownst to me a hanger hook on a file in the second half catches on my sleeve. When I pull back, the hooked half of the folder comes with me and its contents spill out, some inside the drawer, some on the floor.
Cursing, I unhook the file and toss it on the desk. I round up the papers that spilled in the drawer and stuff them back inside. Then I kneel down to gather up the ones on the floor. A small slip of paper has slid far beneath the desk and I have to crawl underneath to get it. When I try to get back up, I miscalculate and bash my head on the underside of the desk’s middle drawer, aggravating the area where my stitches are.
“Damn it,” I mutter, wincing and rubbing my head gingerly. As I’m waiting for the pain to recede, I look at the paper that caused all my misery and see that it’s a receipt from an Internet store. I start to toss it aside but the name of the store—Spies R Us—catches my eye. As I read further I see that the receipt is for a video camera, but not just any camera. This receipt is for a nanny cam.
Chapter 45
I stare at the receipt a moment, pondering its significance. Why would Nelson need a nanny cam?
I manage to crawl out from under the desk without incurring further injury, and I place the receipt on the blotter and snap a picture of it. Then I start examining the office with a new, more critical eye. The first place I look is the bookcase, but as I’m shuffling volumes around it dawns on me that this isn’t the room Nelson would want to record in.
I grab my camera and head into the counseling room. Dried blood still covers the wall and couch, and the smell makes my breakfast churn threateningly. To distract myself, I focus on shooting as many pictures as I can. Even though Carla’s body is no longer here, I keep seeing it in my mind’s eye, lying on the sofa like a ragdoll, her hand on the floor filled with blood, the gun lying nearby.
And then it hits me: it was her right hand on the floor, the one affected by the stroke. Based on what I observed at her house, there is no way she could have used that hand to shoot herself. I make a verbal note of the fact for the recorder and a mental note to call Izzy when I’m done and fill him in.
I set the camera down on the table next to the stuffed chair and examine the rest of the room. I don’t see anything obvious that looks like a camera, or anything that might be hiding a camera. But then I realize I’m not sure what a nanny cam looks like so I head back into the office and boot up the computer on Nelson’s desk. I launch the Internet browser and type in the Web site that appears on the nanny cam receipt. Seconds later I’m looking at a page filled with cleverly designed mini-cameras.
I print the page off and carry it back into the counseling room with me. One by one I compare the items on the page with the items in the room. And it doesn’t take me long to find what I’m looking for. I set the page aside and grab my camera again, this time shooting pictures of a part of the room I’d missed earlier: the ceiling.
I drag Nelson’s chair across the room until it’s positioned beneath the smoke detector. The cushion is too thickly stuffed to make for a solid foot base so I remove it and, in doing so, I find something crammed between it and the chair’s side: an elastic leg stocking. Something about the stocking niggles at my brain and I hold it up and stare at it a moment. But I’m too distracted by the smoke detector, so I toss the stocking over the back of the chair for later consideration.
When I climb up and peer more closely at the smoke detector, I can now see the lens hiding inside it. I’m about to try to pry the outside portion loose to get a better view when I remember how I’ve mucked things up in this investigation already. I decide it would be better to go outside to get Junior as a witness, and my cell phone so I can call Hurley.
As I climb down from the chair, I nearly fall when a female voice startles me.
“You just had to meddle, didn’t you?”
I jump onto the floor and spin around to find Jackie Nash standing in the doorway of the room. She is leaning against the doorjamb, one hand held behind her back, the other playing with her hair. Though her posturing is casual, the rest of her appearance is not. Her hair is mussed and wild looking, her eyes have an angry glint to them, and her mouth is pinched tight with fury. The scars on her face appear more vivid than usual and I can see that she’s not wearing her usual make-up.
“Jackie? What are you doing here? This is a crime scene. You shouldn’t be in here.”
“And yet here I am,” she says, flashing me a humorless smile.
That smile makes me cringe and the hairs on the back of my neck begin to crawl. “How did you get in? Where’s Junior?”
She shrugs. “Last time I saw him he was hanging on the back bumper of his car flirting with a bunch of women. So typical,” she chastises, shaking her head. “His type is always paying attention to the cute ones. They never notice me, unless it’s to pretend they don’t see my scars and aren’t laughing behind my back.”
“No one is laughing behind your back, Jackie.” Even as I say the words, I can hear how false they ring to my own ears. I’ve been witness to what she’s describing too many times.
“Sure they do,” she says. “I’ve gotten used to it over the years. I’d pretty much resigned myself to a lifetime of lonely spinster-hood, working at Dairy Airs until I die. But then Luke came along and everything changed.”
“I’m glad the counseling has helped you,” I tell her, fearing it hasn’t helped nearly enough.
She scoffs. “Counseling? Luke doesn’t give me counseling. He loves me. Unlike the other cretins out there, he’s able to see past all of this”—she thrusts the scarred side of her face toward me—“to the real me underneath it all.”
“You’re dating Luke Nelson?”
“Call it that if you want, but it’s something much more. We’re in love.”
I wince, not relishing the revelations I’m about to make. “Oh, Jackie, you don’t understand. Nelson was just leading you on.” I move toward her, thinking that a sympathetic hand on her shoulder might soften the blow. “The man is . . . sick. He’s got girlfriends in several different towns and—”
The hand behind Jackie’s back shoots forward and I realize why she had it hidden. She’s holding a knife, a really big knife. And it’s now pointed straight at me. I stop where I am, afraid to move, afraid to breathe.
“He doesn’t care about any of those other women,” Jackie says irritably. “They came after him. He told me all about them, how they hang all over him, begging him to sleep with them.” Her lip curls in disgust and she shakes her head sadly. “They are nothing more to him than an outlet for his needs. I’m the only one he truly loves. I’m the only one that really knows how to take care of his needs.”
Suddenly the relevance of the elastic stocking dawns on me. It’s the same type that Jackie would wear to help heal her wound grafts and scar revisions. She must have taken it off during a dalliance here in the office with Nelson.
I stare at her, unsure of what to do or say next. Judging from the crazed look in her eyes, a look I’ve seen plenty of times before on mental patients at the hospital, she is beyond reason. It also means she is highly unpredictable and very dangerous. And she’s blocking my only exit from the room.