Endangered Species (18 page)

flaving replaced the briefcase under the table, she opened the folder.

The papers were neatly typed, two copies of each, and Frederick marveled

at her organization.  Anybody that well prepared-for anything-was

impressive.  Frederick had to shake off a feeling of being

second-string, a day late, a dollar short.

"Don't be intimidated by all this bull," Molly said, waving a fineboned

hand over the papers ." Two things: I'm ana]-retentive and I like to

play around with my computer."

Frederick was not reassured.  That she'd read his insecurities so easily

was more alarming than her overdeveloped organizational skills.  In less

than an hour Molly Pigeon was coming to know him better than most did in

a year.

"Let's take a look at what you've come up with," he said.  He reached

for the file and was met by a whiff of tantalizing floral scent.

just enough to make him want to lean closer.  He coughed to cover his

embarrassment.

Molly had a complete client list, first names only to maintain privacy.

By each name was a brief description of their disorder .

Among the medical terms Frederick was amused to find a few good

old-fashioned diagnoses: "Cheryl M.-terminal boredom, "Steven P.-pompous

ass."

The second page was given the heading "Seriously I'll." Under that she

had listed the people she cared for who suffered from debilitating

illnesses: paranoia, schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, clinical

depression, psychosis.

"Brought these because this is where people seem to want to look first.

I didn't know if you'd be the exception.  Anyway, I've discounted all of

them for one reason or another.  Some are locked up, some are too

dysfunctional.  The rest have problems that simply don't manifest in

violence or threats of violence toward others."

Frederick nodded.  Those suffering to the point they were committed to a

doctor's care usually didn't have the energy or facility to plot complex

crimes.

"Here's my cast list," Molly said, and pushed the third sheet across the

table ." I really don't think any of these people did it.  I'm at a

loss, I'm afraid.  These are just the people I couldn't rule out

altogether."

Those she felt might be responsible for the threatening calls and

letters had been highlighted in yellow, and a more detailed diagnosis

followed.

"James L." Molly read the first name on the list and Frederick followed

along on his printout ." This patient isn't the usual for me .

Mostly I've priced myself out of the real world.  My clients tend to be

wealthy neurotics.  This man worked for Packard Electric as a machinist.

He's forty-seven years old, white, Vietnam vet.  He wanted full

disability for posttraumatic stress syndrome from the war.  He'd read an

article mentioning my name in Time magazine and thought my word would

carry sufficient weight to get him his early retirement.  He put on a

decent show, but I thought he was a fraud and said so."

" He didn't take it well?"

"Not him so much as wife number two.  A woman twenty years his junior

who had plans of her own: two incomes-both his."

Frederick dug a pen out of his inside breast pocket ." Better describe

her."

"Early twenties, with the unlikely name of Portia.  Small-about Anna's

size."

Frederick smiled to himself.  Molly was no bigger than Anna but

apparently suffered from the same John Wayne complex as her sister.

,, Red hair-from a bottle-worn big.  Country western singer big.  Good

voice till she got angry, then shrill.  Regular features but ordinary,

even with heavy makeup.  She entered data for the same company as her

husband.  She wanted to quit-she'd married so she wouldn't have to work.

When he lost his suit against Packard she got ugly, made some threats .

" What exactly?"

"The usual.  You'll get yours, one day you'll be sorry-that sort of

thing."

"Any wording like that used in the notes or on the phone messages?"

"No," Molly said, then, after a sip of Scotch and a moment's

deliberation added, "Maybe.  I seem to remember her suggesting I wasn't

human.  That theme recurred in one of the phone messages."

She laughed ." Maybe I'm not.  When Anna and I were kids we got hold of

one of those tabloids-I think it was the Enquirer.  The front-page

article was about aliens masquerading as humans and mating with the

locals to produce hybrid offspring.  The attributes of these half-breeds

suited our mom right down to her eyeteeth.  We've often speculated that

we are a quarter Trafaimagorian on our mother's side."

"That explains a lot," Frederick said.  He glanced over the rim of his

Scotch and into her eyes.  There was unexpected depth there.

Molly smiled and he felt a warmth that unnerved him.  He grabbed up the

pen, forgotten by his notebook ." Not human.  Portia," he said aloud as

he scribbled the words down ." I'll need her last name and any other

information you've got on her.

"What else?" Frederick asked, needing to stick to business and wondering

why.

"Sheila T.-Thomas, Sheila Thomas." Molly read the next name on the list

." She was coming to me for depression and anxiety .

According to her, her husband was a jerk.  She was having an affair with

his brother.  I counseled her to take stock of the shortcomings in her

marriage and discuss them with her husband.  She took this to mean she

should tell her husband about her infidelity with his brother.  A course

of action I think she was leaning toward anyway .

Rage, anger, desire to lash out.  She told him and he promptly divorced

her.  Due to the circumstances, she came out on the short end of the

stick when it came to the property settlement.  Sheila blamed me for the

divorce."

" She made threats?"

"A few.  Not life-and-death.  More along the lines of getting my license

revoked, getting me blackballed, hints at connections in high places.  I

included her because she was literate, well-spoken, a businesswoman, and

the two nasty notes she sent me were beautifully written on expensive

stationery.  And no," she said as Frederick looked up, "I didn't keep

them.  This all transpired four months ago and I didn't think much of it

at the time."

"The last one here is a Nancy B." Frederick read the final name on the

short list.

"Bradshaw," Molly said ." Nancy's a real reach but I threw her in

because she has a demonstrated capacity for physical violence against

things if not people.  I only saw her once.  She came to me because her

life was a shambles.  She was drinking too much and having affairs even

though she swore she worshiped the ground her sainted husband walked on.

I suggested maybe there was at least perceived tarnish on his halo and

she was acting out because she was angry with him on some level.  She

went from zero to sixty in sixty seconds, from sitting in an armchair to

stomping around my office throwing books and smashing a lamp.  To our

mutual benefit, that was our first and last session."

Frederick jotted down a few words to jog his memory, then gathered up

the pages Molly had provided and stowed them neatly in his inside breast

pocket.  What he would ever use them for, he couldn't imagine, but she'd

gone to so much trouble he didn't want to seem ungrateful.

For a minute, maybe more, they sat without speaking.  The sounds of a

city's summer night leaked in around the windowpanes .

Sirens in the distance, human conversation muted to wordlessness,

traffic.  Having lived in cities all his adult life, Frederick found

these sounds comforting.  The bleak wilderness vistas Anna so loved

didn't stir an answering echo in his heart.  The sound of wind in the

pines wasn't music to him.  It struck his ear as the very breath of

loneness.

"How long did Anna live in the city)" he asked.

"Seven years," Molly replied, as if it were a number she kept always in

the forefront of her mind.

" Do You think she could ever move back?"

Molly shot him a long look ." I have my doubts," she said at last .

"After Zach's death, Anna ran into the wilderness much like an Old

'Testament prophet seeking her God or a reasonable facsimile thereof.  I

think she found it.  She's doing okay playing at Smokey Bear.  I don't

know how she would fare back in an urban environment."

Feeling somehow disloyal talking about Anna, Frederick took a last look

at his notes.

"Not much, is there?" Molly voiced his thoughts.

"Not much."

"None of them feels right to me either."

The check came and Frederick paid it, relieved he didn't have to go two

falls out of three with Dr.  Pigeon for the privilege.

"What about media coverage?" Frederick asked as they were leaving the

pub ." That brings out the weirdos."

"A trial.  An insanity defense , Molly said after a moment's thought ."

That got a bit of coverage.  I was the expert witness for the defense.

But that was years ago and we won, so they've no cause for complaint.

For a while I had people beating down my door to testify for them or

somebody they knew, but I won't do it anymore.  After the Mack trial I

quit."

" Why?"

"There are just too many people who are genuinely insane.  No doubt

about it, they're mentally ill and they're going to stay mentally ill. I

came to the decision that though I pity them deeply, I'm not arrogant

enough to believe I can fix them, and I cannot, in good conscience,

loose them on society."

It's not you loosing them, it's the jury."

Molly just laughed.  She lifted her hand imperiously, giving Frederick a

start.  A cab pulled over to the curb ." Can I drop you somewhere?"

Frederick thanked her but wasn't going far enough to warrant a ride.

As the cab was pulling away Molly rolled down the window ." I like you,"

she said.

Approval.  Everybody craved it.  Frederick laughed aloud at himself,

then stopped abruptly.  The words had meant more to him than simple

approval.  They'd made his little heart go pittypat ." Not good," he

whispered to himself as he watched the cab drive away, Molly straight

and strong in the back seat, the enormity that was New York City wrapped

around her like a well-fitting cloak.

wA RODE into the conscious world on a tide of nausea that 1washed up

from the vicinity of her bowels, broke in a sour foam, and spewed out

her throat.

Gagging, she tried to push herself to her knees and failed.  Bile

trickled from her lips, unpleasantly warm against her cheek.  The sour

smell sickened her further but still she couldn't find the strength to

lift her face off the linoleum.  Somewhere between her will and her

muscles there had been a breakdown.  Messages were not getting through.

For a minute she lay as one dead, giving in to the inertia.  In a brief

gust of optimism, it occurred to her that possibly she could open her

eyes.  The eyes, being in her head-closer, as it were, to the center of

power-might work.  She paused, gathering her strength, then centered it