City of Masks (39 page)

"Charm, honey, can you . . ."
and he didn't know what he wanted of her.
Where was she? ". . . help me?"
Or maybe she had gone out. Or was that yesterday? He lunged to his feet and took two quick strides toward the door but fell full out before he could reach it.
No air.
His legs refused to work, and the pain was everywhere now, he was a ball of pain. The amaretto taste was too strong and wouldn't fade and it surrounded him and it wasn't right, and abruptly he knew he'd been poisoned. Every labored breath was full of its suffocating stink. He flopped on the rug, trying to get to his hands and knees but the room tilted and he fell heavily on his side.

Josephine!
his thoughts cried. Her face came clearly to mind. He was experiencing a telescoped, dreamlike memory, all of it rushing at him together, a flickering movie played many times too fast. Faces and names, Josephine and Charmian and Brad and Ron and Lila and further back,
Father!
and
Mama!,
and others Cree didn't know. And then the beating, beating, beating, the intolerable rage and the revulsion of it, the self-hatred and regret and compassion and fear of what the future held and the beating going on anyway, completely out of control. The horror of feeling such abandon, letting go into something so animal, knowing it had always been there and was impermissible but unstoppable, too.

And abruptly he knew for certain he was dying.

Cree had felt that recognition before, at once deeply familiar and impossibly strange. With the knowledge came the sense of everything being interrupted at just the wrong time: all the gestures of life, so desperately needing closure, so unresolved and incomplete. So wrong.

"Charmian!"
he shouted. He doubled again on the floor like a grub brought out of the soil and contorting in the sunlight.
"Charmian!"
And there was no answer. No, she was gone today.
'Josephine?"
Another call for help.
"Josephine!"
This time more of an accusation - he felt betrayed by her. But she was gone, too. Or was she, yet? He didn't know when he was, time was folding upon itself in liquid, doubling loops.
"Josephine!
Charm, don't let her go! She
—
"
And he didn't know what he was going to say. It was urgent, but it had vanished from his mind.

Again Cree saw a glimpse of the nanny's mahogany-dark face, her resolute mouth, her steady, relentless eyes. And there was no refuge in her, or in Charmian. His thoughts fled to Ron with concern: poor innocent Ro-Ro. Ro-Ro would never understand - this would destroy him just as it destroyed Lila. He'd failed his son, too.

And then he was just dying and all the thoughts fused into one thing, his life distilled down into what really mattered, and it was Lila, and Lila was a little girl, that day when the air was so nice and they'd found themselves in the backyard and for once there wasn't something else pressing that had to be done, and they'd both just been there together, father and daughter.

Overcome, Cree took a step toward the convulsing figure. "Daddy?" she blurted. "Daddy!" He couldn't die, not now.

Now the ghost existed only as a memory of that moment. He'd pushed her on the swing, so high, up into the branches, and they'd both laughed and it had been so complete, just doing that. So simple. There was no need to say anything and she was so happy and he was so complete. A moment of simple harmony that wrote its shape on his soul.

Richard arched in a last wave of pain, clinging to the memory, the one refuge for his tortured heart: the image of her way up and giddy on the swing, hair and skirts trailing behind, skinny legs stuck out straight and mouth wide with laughter. He sent his love toward her on her upward free arc, hoping she'd know it and carry it with her always, praying that in some way
this
was what she'd carry with her. This and not the other.

And then the form on the rug stopped convulsing and the girl on the swing broke into a million crazy fragments, shards of a broken mirror. After a moment the solid-looking man became a haze again, his body-ghost dissipating. The room seen through his eyes faded and it was dark and Cree was alone again, weeping. She sobbed so hard it felt as though she'd turn inside out. She fell to her hands and knees and cried until it was as if she'd vomited and she was weak and empty but it was done with for now.

She used her flashlight only once, to search the floor where she'd seen him fall. And she found the little burn mark in the splendid, faded carpet. She put her finger on it and almost felt the searing ash again. Then she put away the light and groped her way out of the room, blind from darkness and tears.

38

T
HE RAPE WAS A BOMB THAT
exploded that family," Cree told Joyce. "All the relationships blew apart, people scattering like shrapnel. Charmian learned of it and couldn't be with her husband any more but couldn't decide how to preserve anything like a family if she accused him publicly. So she started sleeping apart from him but otherwise made a pretense of normal life. Lila couldn't cope with what happened or with her feelings toward her father. She suffered from posttraumatic stress and became acutely depressed. Went off to school, broke down, came back, got medicated up, went away for good. Ron, I'm not sure how much he knew, but everything was going crazy, everything was wrong. He 'went away' by abdicating his role as scion of the illustrious family he now knew to be a complete hypocrisy. He retreated into self-absorption and self-indulgence. And Josephine left, too, fled the collapse of the Beaufortes — and probably the wrath of Charmian."

Joyce nodded thoughtfully. "So you're thinking it was Josephine, not Charmian? Who poisoned Richard?"

Of course Joyce would put it together fast, Cree thought. "Yes. Oh, Charmian would' ve wanted to, and she would've been capable of it. But her pride wouldn't have let her risk a public scandal. Above all else, she'd protect the family name."

Joyce didn't seem so sure. She sorted among her carefully ordered files and pulled out a page. "Richard's obituary says he died on January 7, 1972. Lila could have been still at home for Christmas break, or maybe she'd gone back already. How can we verify when Josephine left?"

Cree took the sheet from her and read it closely for the first time. "I don't know that it matters. Either she was still working for them, or she came back just to put something in Richard's drink. She might still have had a key."

"You think cyanide? Isn't that the one that smells like almonds? All I know is the old mystery movies."

Cree shrugged. It didn't matter.

They were sitting in Cree's room, drinking the hotel kit's anemic coffee with chalk dust in it. The curtains were wide to the morning light and the throb of activity on Canal Street below. When Cree had told Joyce she'd gone to the house again, Joyce had been furious at first, then merely negative and resigned. Only after a lot of reassuring had Cree been able to rekindle the spark of curiosity in her, her bloodhound's instincts.

Joyce tapped a pencil against her lips, thinking. "One question, though. Coroner said it was heart failure. How'd that get by?"

Cree had already found the answer. She showed Joyce a line from the obituary. "Dr. Andre Fitzpatrick - Paul Fitzpatrick's father - was the New Orleans parish coroner at the time, and he's who certified cause of death. He was Richard's physician and a good friend of the Beaufortes I've seen his name on the back of probably a dozen photos in Lila's albums. He was also the doctor Charmian called in to treat Lila when she fell apart. My guess is Charmian prevailed upon him to cover it up to protect the Beauforte name. She probably told him
why
Josephine killed Richard, and he agreed that it was justified, that punishing her would serve no interest. And that charging her would only make the scandal public."

Joyce poured herself the last of the coffee from the little pot, swigged it, made a face. "So you're thinking Richard really was, clinically, a multiple personality? That he's both ghosts?"

"It's the only way all the parts fit together. It fits with what I've learned from the ghosts and what we've learned from conventional research. It •fits Lila's psychological state and Channian's secretiveness. I know it's a pretty radical idea, but I'm going to assume it's the correct theory."

"So what's next?"

"Well, we hope Deelie turns up Josephine. Part of me wants to go confront Charmian, tell her what I know, plead with her to cooperate. But first I think I need to talk to Dr. Fitzpatrick again. We need to figure out a prognosis for Lila based on what we now know."

"So it's
Doctor
Fitzpatrick again? Here I thought maybe you guys - "

"Joyce. This isn't the time for — "

"For what? Life? Or just love?"

Cree bristled and stamped her foot in anger and frustration. " Damn it, Joyce, you are simply going to have get off this thing of — "

"Oh, no! Uh-uh, Cree - don't you even
dream
of getting angry at me!" Joyce shot out of her chair and stood defiantly, startling Cree with her intensity. She turned three-quarters toward Cree, legs apart in almost a martial arts stance, her narrowed eyes shooting black sparks. "Yeah, Cree, I remind you that we are
alive,
okay, and that life goes
on,
and you should
neverlet
all this stuff interfere. Well, excuse me! My attitude is you need a dose of life once in a while. No, actually, let's cut to the chase here - my attitude is that getting
laid
would do you a world of good. There, I've said it. You don't like that, I quit. Seriously, Cree, I walk out of this room right now, and you go ahead and turn into some kind of walking dead, zombie bitch. The metaphysics here are a complete no-brainer, and I'm sick of going over it and over it!"

Cree had never seen her like this. She stood open-mouthed, unable to respond.

Joyce was shoveling her files into her briefcase in a blind fury, blinking back tears. "Plus you owe me two weeks' back pay and severance."

Cree's heart felt wrenched in her chest. "Joyce, it's not that simple with Paul - "

"It never
is
'simple,' Cree, not even for people with discernable body heat and a few remaining mammalian instincts, okay? But you've forgotten all that, I guess." Joyce snapped up the briefcase but then looked at it in surprise. "What am I doing? I don't need this stuff. Here, you take it." She flung it at Cree's feet. Then she grabbed her purse, slung the strap over her shoulder, and strode to the door. "All yours. And good luck."

"Joyce. Please."

Joyce stopped with her hand on the knob, her heaving back to Cree. "What," she said after a moment.

"Listen, you're probably right. But it's very hard for me to be with a guy who . . . thinks I'm nuts. It means we're not . . . not equals. How can I be with someone who sees me that way? Half the time he acts as if I'm a . . . a patient, a
case . . .
not a woman."

Joyce spun back to her. The anger was still bright, but it was conflicted and starting to come apart. "Well, I can think of some real easy ways to shift his perspective. It doesn't take a genius. A short skirt, a snug tank top, and the
right attitude,
Cree, does wonders for a guy's outlook! Suspends all that rational judgment damned fast. Every time."

Cree shook her head. "Paul doesn't believe in what I do. He doesn't believe in what I see, what I am. His worldview won't allow him to see it any other way."

Joyce took a step back from the door, biting her lips as her fury broke apart. She was still breathing hard as they looked at each other for a moment. Then her face puckered. She put out her shaking hand to Cree's cheek, a cool, tentative touch.

"Then you're just gonna have to change his worldview, aren't you?" she said softly.

It took an awkward half hour, but they patched things up. They were both shell-shocked, but Joyce had called it right, it was the kind of battle and reconciliation sisters had: Afterward, the combatants mustered on and somehow the relationship endured. They talked about the case for a time, then Joyce went off to do homework — mainly, to chase down a few leads Deelie had suggested for finding Josephine.

Finally, Cree also requested that Joyce call Edgar and ask him if he could come sooner than planned. She didn't specify why, but Joyce clearly got the message: If Ed wanted a shot at this ghost, he'd better come soon. Cree would need to move straight into remediation; they couldn't delay for a period of technological verification and physical analysis. This ghost had to be dealt with fast, before Cree fell apart or Lila succeeded in killing herself. Or both.

After Joyce left, Cree put in a call to Charmian. She spoke to Tarika, who said that she was out; Cree left a message requesting a call back. She called the hospital and asked to speak to Lila but was told she was asleep. She was recovering well, the floor nurse said, but she was on a sedative drip that kept her groggy. Medically, physically, she could be released at any time, but her psychological health was another matter; Jack and Lila's physician were arranging longer-term treatment at a psychiatric facility. She called Jack to arrange a meeting with him, to persuade him to allow her access to Lila, but he hung up on her. She called Deelie to check in about progress on Josephine, got her voice mail, left a message.

That left her just about out of initiatives. True, there was much to be done at the house - too much, in fact, a daunting task. Joyce was right, she needed some recuperative time. The mere thought of the boar-headed man sent her thoughts scuttling like panicked mice; her hands shook. She was afraid to go back to the place alone.

Of course, there was still Paul Fitzpatrick to deal with. For an instant, Cree remembered the reassuring yet erotic contact of his hip as they'd walked on the levee, his arm firm around her waist. The sensation had touched a deep ache of longing. Should she sleep with him? No, the fundamental barriers were still there. Anyway, it was probably too late: They'd fought too hard, too many times. And Edgar would be here soon, and there was no way in hell Cree would subject him to witnessing her having an intimate relationship with someone else.

But Joyce was right that she had to change Paul's worldview. Cree couldn't stay in New Orleans forever to be available to Lila in the long term; Cree might be able to banish the ghost, but she couldn't banish what had happened when Richard was alive. And neither Paul nor any other therapist could effectively treat Lila unless he or she accepted the literal reality of the ghost - if for no other reason than that Lila did not need one more person urging her to deny, diminish, "selectively reinterpret," or forget another crucial and traumatic experience.

No. With bone-deep certainty, Cree knew the opposite was true: To survive, Lila had to face the ghost herself, to achieve her own victory over or reconciliation with her tormentor. Exposing her to the ghost again would put her in mortal danger, but so would pretending that the original or the spectral rapes hadn't happened.

Which meant she had to go back to the house. And there would be no way to get Lila back there, over the objections of Jack and no doubt Charmian, without Paul's help.

Cree stared at the phone for a moment, feeling the pulse accelerate in her throat, and finally dialed his home number. Machine. Then she called his office and was told by his secretary that he was not in today. She had just set down the receiver when it rang, making her jump. She snatched it up again.

"Paul?"

"I sound like a Paul to you?"

"Deelie!"

"No, it's the ghost of Jean Laffite!" Deelie's voice sounded a little hoarse, but there was definitely warmth and a smile in it. "Hey, Miz Black, I been up half the night. Legwork, my specialty? Mainly talkin' to a
lot
of old, old ladies. And, girl, you do now owe me major big. I believe I've found your Josephine!"