"You don't think so?" Anna questions all of it. "You do not think he did to her, symbolically, what she was doing to you? Obsession. Forcing her way into your life when you were vulnerable. Attacking, degrading, destroying_an overpowering that aroused her, perhaps even sexually. What is it you have told me so many times? People die the way they lived."
"Many of them do."
"Did she?"
"Symbolically, as you put it?" I reply. "Maybe."
"And you, Kay? Did you almost die the way you lived?"
"I didn't die, Anna."
"But you almost did," she says again. "And before he came to your door, you had almost given up. You almost stopped living when Benton did."
Tears touch my eyes.
"What do you think might have happened to you had Diane Bray not died?" Anna then asks.
Bray ran the Richmond police department and fooled peo- pie who mattered. In a very short time, she made a name for herself throughout Virginia, and ironically, her narcissism, her lust for power and recognition, it appears, may be what lured Chandonne to her. I wonder if he stalked her first. I wonder if he stalked me, and suppose the answer to both questions is that he must have.
"Do you think you'd still be the chief medical examiner if Diane Bray were alive?" Anna's stare is unwavering.
"I wouldn't have let her win." I taste my soup and my stomach flops. "I don't care how diabolical she was, I wouldn't have allowed it. My life is up to me. It was never up to her. My life is mine to make or ruin."
"Perhaps you are glad she is dead," Anna says.
"The world's better off without her." I push the place mat and everything on it well away from me. "That's the truth. The world is better off without people like her. The world would be better off without him."
"Better off without Chandonne?"
I nod.
"Then perhaps you wish Lucy had killed him after all?" she quietly suggests, and Anna has a way of demanding truth without being aggressive or judging. "Maybe you would pull the switch, as they say?"
"No." I shake my head. "No, I would not pull the switch on anyone. I can't eat. I'm sorry you went to so much trouble. I hope I'm not coming down with something."
"We have talked enough for now." Anna is suddenly the parent deciding it is time for bed. "Tomorrow is Sunday, a good day to stay in and be quiet and rest. I am clearing my calendar, canceling all my appointments for Monday. And then I'll cancel Tuesday and Wednesday and the rest of the week, if need be."
I try to object but she won't hear it.
"The good thing about being my age is I can do whatever the hell I want," she adds, "I am on call for emergencies. But that is all. And right now, you are my biggest emergency, Kay."
"I'm not an emergency." I get up from the table.
Anna helps me with my luggage and takes me down a long hallway that leads to the west wing of her majestic home. The guest room where I am to stay for an undetermined period of time is dominated by a large yew wood bed that, like much of the furniture in her house, is pale gold Biedermeier. Her decor is restrained, with straight and simple lines, but cumulus down-filled duvets and pillows and heavy draperies that flow in champagne silk waterfalls to the hardwood floor hint at her true nature. Anna's motivation in life is the comfort of others, to heal and to banish pain and celebrate pure beauty.
"What else do you need?" She hangs up my clothes.
I help put away other items in dresser drawers and realize I am trembling again.
"Do you need something to sleep?" She lines up my shoes on the closet floor.
Taking an Ativan or some other sedative is a tempting proposition that I resist. "I've always been afraid to make it a habit," I vaguely respond. "You can see how I am with cigarettes. I can't be trusted."
Anna looks at me. "It is very important you get sleep, Kay. No better friend to depression."
I am not sure what she is saying, but I know what she means. I am depressed. I am probably going to be depressed, and sleep deprivation makes everything so much worse. Throughout my life, insomnia has flared up like arthritis, and when I became a physician I had to resist the easy habit of indulging in one's own candy store. Prescription drugs have always been there. I have always stayed away from them.
Anna leaves me and I sit up in bed with the lights off, staring into the dark, halfway believing that when morning comes, I will find what has happened is just another one of my bad dreams, another horror that crept out from my deeper layers when I was not quite conscious. My rational voice probes my interior like a flashlight but dispels nothing. I can't illuminate any meaning to my almost being mutilated and killed and how that fact will affect the rest of my life. I can't feel it. I can't make sense of it. God, help me. I turn over on my side and shut my eyes. Now I lay me down to sleep, my mother used to pray with me, but I always thought the words were really more for my father in his sickbed down the hall. Sometimes when my mother would leave my room I would insert masculine pronouns into the verses. If he should die before he wakes, I pray the Lord his soul to take, and I would cry myself to sleep.
Chapter 3
I WAKE UP THE FOLLOWING MORNING TO VOICES IN the house and have the unsettling sensation that the telephone rang all night. I am not sure if I dreamed it. For an awful moment I have no idea where I am, then it comes to me in a sick, fearful wave. I work my way up against pillows and am still for a moment. I can tell through drawn curtains that the sun is aloof again, offering nothing but gray.
I help myself to a thick terry-cloth robe hanging on the back of the bathroom door and put on a pair of socks before venturing out to see who else is in the house. I hope the visitor is Lucy, and it is. She and Anna are in the kitchen. Small snowflakes sprinkle down past expansive windows overlooking the backyard and the flat pewter river. Bare trees etched darkly against the day move slightly in the wind, and wood smoke rises from the house of the nearest neighbor. Lucy has on a faded warm-up suit left over from when she took computer and robotics courses at MIT. It appears she has styled her short auburn hair with her fingers, and she seems unusually grim and has a glassy-eyed, bloodshot look that I associate with too much booze the night before,
"Did you just get here?" I hug her good morning. "Actually, last night," she replies, squeezing me tight. "I couldn't resist. Thought I'd drop by and we'd have a slumber party. But you were down for the count. It's my fault for getting here so late."
"Oh no." I go hollow inside. "You should have gotten me up. Why didn't you?"
"No way. How's the arm?"
"It doesn't hurt as much." This is not at all true. "You checked out of the Jefferson?"
"Nope, still there." Lucy's expression is unreadable. She drops to the floor and pulls off her warm-up pants, revealing bright spandex running tights underneath.
"I am afraid your niece was a bad influence," Anna says. "She brought over a very nice bottle of Veuve Cliquot and we stayed up much too late. I would not let her drive back downtown."
I feel a twinge of hurt, or maybe it is jealousy. "Champagne? Are we celebrating something?" I inquire.
Anna replies with a slight shrug. She is preoccupied. I sense she carries very heavy thoughts that she does not want to set down before me, and I wonder if the phone really did ring last night. Lucy unzips her jacket, revealing more bright blue and black nylon that fits her strong, athletic body like paint.