Evidence of Guilt (31 page)

I picked up on Jake's uneasiness. "You don't think recovered memory is valid?"

"On the whole, no. There are too many variables. A movie, a book, a childhood dream--even a suggestion by the therapist, however well-intentioned--these things can blend with truth and become fixed as a real memory. Of course, I don't pretend to be an expert on the matter."

He checked his watch and stood. "This has been very pleasant, but I'm afraid I need to get back to work."

I rose and walked with him back toward the parking lot. "Would a repressed memory of a childhood trauma manifest itself in headaches?"

He appeared thoughtful. "It might. But you have to remember, there are literally hundreds of things that can cause headaches."

"I wish I knew whether Lisa's were connected in some way to her death."

Jake touched my shoulder lightly in a fatherly gesture of goodwill. "I know you and Sam are on top of this, and I'm grateful for all you're doing. You'll let me know if there are any new developments?"

"Of course."

As he headed back inside, I thought again about Lisa's sessions with Dr. Markley. Had they ventured into Lisa's subconscious memory? Had they revealed a secret so terrible someone had killed to protect it?

I found a pay phone in the cluster of shops near the deli and started to call Caroline Anderson. She probably knew Lisa as well as anyone, and I needed some answers. After dropping in my quarter I reconsidered and hung up. I'd have better luck in person.

Caroline opened the door with a smile that withered when she saw me. "I can't talk to you right now," she said. "I was just getting the kids fed so I could put them down for their naps."

"I only have a couple of questions. I promise to make it quick. Or I can wait until they're in bed, if that would be better."

She ran a hand through her tangled blond hair. "Why do you keep bothering me? I don't know anything about what happened."

"I don't mean to bother you. It's just that there seemed to be a lot of things going on in Lisa's life that don't make sense. One of them might have led to her death."

Caroline looked at me with a mix of sullenness and frustration.

"Please," I said. "I could really use your help."

"Oh, all right." She sighed, opening the door wider. The bruising around her lip had faded to a light teal. "Like I told you before, though, I didn't spend a whole lot of time with Lisa these last couple of months, so I don't see how I'm going to help you."

I followed her into the kitchen where the baby, in his high chair, was busy mashing banana into his hair. Jeremy sat at the table slurping a bowl of Cheerios.

"You're sure Lisa never said anything about keeping a diary?" I asked.

"Not to me."

Maybe I was making more of the issue than I needed to, but the diary was likely to be our only avenue into what went on in Lisa's therapy sessions. And those discussions might well hold the answer to Lisa's death, as well as Dr. Markley's.

"Did Lisa talk much about her headaches?"

Caroline brushed crumbs off a chair and offered me a seat. "She'd complain about them, but who wouldn't? I gather they were pretty awful."

"Did she say what might have caused them?"

"Caused them?"

"Like maybe tension or worry?"

"No, just that she got them. And that they'd gotten worse in the last year. She was seeing a doctor about it."

"Was there any pattern to the headaches?"

"Not that I was aware of." Caroline pried what was left of the banana from her baby's hand. He began to wail immediately. "Jeremy, reach into that box of Cheerios and give a handful for Ty."

Most of the reading I'd done about repressed memory had been in the context of legal proceedings, and I'd tended to focus on that rather than the psychological aspects. I wished now that I'd paid more attention to some of the characteristic behaviors.

"Did she mention nightmares? Or trouble sleeping?"

Caroline shook her head. "Nothing unusual." With the baby newly engrossed in tossing Cheerios, Caroline began the job of wiping banana from his hair.

"How was Lisa's health otherwise?" I asked.

"It seemed okay. The headaches made her sick to her stomach, and some days she was really low on energy, but aren't we all?"

"How about her family? Did she talk much about them?"

"I know that her parents were divorced not long after she was born. And then there was another marriage and divorce as well, while Lisa was still young. She was in high school when her mother married this last guy. It wasn't like Lisa talked about them much, only that she wanted things to be different for Amy."

"Different in what way?"

'The traditional American family and all that." Caroline forced a laugh. "Like me and Duane. Mother, father, two kids and a house with a sandbox. Lisa had this notion that if you had the right players, you'd end up happy."

"Lisa wasn't?"

"It was hard to tell with Lisa. One day she'd be bright as a penny, all talkative and bubbly, then the next thing you know she'd be down in the dumps."

"But she wanted Amy's life to be better than hers had been?"

Caroline nodded. "That's what she kept saying. To listen to her, you'd think she'd had a dreadful childhood.

But it never seemed to me she'd had such an awful time of it." Caroline retrieved Jeremy's bowl. "Go wash your hands and face, now," she told him. "I'll be in to read to you in a minute."

Ron had told me that Lisa's behavior changed after she entered high school. The good student, dutiful daughter had become rebellious. It could have been hormones. It could have been resentment about her mother remarrying again. Or it could have been something more traumatic.

"Was there any common theme to her grumblings about family?"

"Like what?"

I wasn't sure. "Alcoholism, physical violence, family tensions, that sort of thing."

Caroline shook her head. "Not that I recall."

"What was her relationship with her stepfather?"

"Chilly. Although, if you ask me, a lot of it was her own fault."

"In what way?"

"You know, not making an effort at it. She was barely civil to him the time he showed up at the restaurant."

"He came to Silver Creek to see her?" My surprise was evident from my tone. "When was that?"

"A couple of weeks before she was killed. Seemed like a nice enough guy to me. He was at a conference in Sacramento. Took a day to drive up special. Lisa acted completely indifferent."

Ron Swanson hadn't mentioned that visit. I couldn't recall his words well enough to know whether he'd deliberately misled me or simply sidestepped the issue. Either way, it annoyed me that he hadn't been straight.

Caroline pulled the baby out of his chair and washed

his face with a wet towel. "I really need to put this guy down."

I started to rise, then thought of something else. "Did you ever go with Lisa to the Last Chance over in Coopertown?"

"Are you kidding? When would I find time to do that?"

"Did she mention going there herself?"

Caroline balanced the baby on her hip. "No. Why?"

"She apparently met some guy there a couple of times. I thought you might know who he was."

She chewed on her bottom lip. "Philip Stockman?"

"No. From the description it wasn't him."

There was a moment's silence. Caroline's face grew pale. She stared at her feet. "It wasn't Duane, was it?" Her voice was strained, barely more than a whisper.

"What makes you ask that?"

"Was it him?" she repeated, the pitch rising. She lifted her eyes to meet mine. They shone with anger. "Is that what this is all about?"

Caroline's response caught me off guard, but it also confirmed something I'd halfway suspected. "Was there something going on between Lisa and Duane?"

For a moment she didn't move. Then she slumped into the chair and sucked in her breath. The baby bounced in her lap. "I don't know."

I could hear the trepidation in her voice, and my heart went out to her. "But you think there might have been?"

"Duane says there wasn't." Caroline began to cry softly. The baby pulled at the neck of her shirt and gummed the fabric near her chest, but she seemed not to notice.

"What made you suspicious?"

"It seemed strange the way he turned against her so suddenly. Lisa and I used to get together a lot, with the kids

and all. Sometimes she'd be here when Duane got home from work, and we'd all have a soda or a beer or something before she left. Then, for no reason, he tells me one day to stay away from her."

"Did he say why?"

'Just that I was spending too much time with friends and I needed to focus more on the family."

There had to have been more to worry Caroline than that. "What else?" I asked gently.

She tightened her hold on the baby, kept her eyes on his chubby feet. "My friend, Paula, she saw them necking at the Lowrys' barbecue earlier this summer. She went inside to use the bathroom and found them in the hallway. Duane and I had a big fight about it that night. I figured he told me to stay away from Lisa so I wouldn't get in the way of his little adventure."

"What did Duane say?"

Her laugh was bitter. "He swears there was nothing to it, got mad at me for doubting him. He tried to pin the whole thing on Lisa. Said she'd been making eyes at him for months, that she threw herself at him before he knew what was happening."

"You didn't believe him?"

She gave another hard laugh. "Duane's had a roving eye as long as I've known him. But I always trusted him. I figured there wasn't much harm in looking. I guess it was too much to expect that eventually his hands wouldn't start to rove too."

"He could be telling the truth, you know."

"I doubt it. Lisa wasn't that kind. She wouldn't even sleep with her fiance."

"What was
^explanation for what happened at the barbecue?"span>

Caroline sighed. "I didn't ask her. I just stopped seeing her, stopped returning her calls. The experience kind of put a damper on our friendship. Even if it was just that one time, she didn't have to go along with it We were supposed to be friends, after all, and Duane is my
husband."

Had Lisa simply
gone along with it,
as Caroline suggested, or had she come on to Duane the way she had with Wes? And had it gone any further?

"Does Duane have a temper?" I asked.

Caroline shrugged. "I've seen worse."

"What about your lip? Did he do that?"

Instinctively, her hand rose to touch the bruise.

"Did you have a fight?"

Maybe it wasn't any of my business, but that usually didn't stop me. I leaned forward and briefly touched Caroline's arm. "Was it about Lisa?"

She shook her head.

"There are places you can go for help, you know."

Caroline's hand returned to stroking the baby's fuzzy head. "It wasn't Duane's fault," she said. "He was trying to kiss me and I pulled away. It was after you called the first time."

"When I said I wanted to talk to you about Lisa?"

She nodded. "It started me thinking again about Duane and Lisa. Worrying that he'd been cheating on me. Anyway, I turned away unexpectedly and our heads collided."

"And then?"

A slight smile. "And then we made up. Duane acted so sweet, you wouldn't believe it."

"And he's stayed sweet?"

"It's not what you think. Duane talks tough sometimes, but he's not mean. He would never hurt me on purpose.

Not like that." She took a breath. "What hurts is whenever I think about him and Lisa together. That hurts bad."

"For what it's worth," I said, "Duane doesn't fit the description of the man Lisa met at the Last Chance."

Caroline presssed her lips together. "That's something, I suppose."