Out Of Time (18 page)

She nodded. I climbed inside the Cutlass e athe Cutand drove back to Durham, wondering if I had gained anything useful from the interview. Too bad I had even minimal ethics. A good hypnotist might be able to help the child remember more. That was when I almost steered the Cutlass into a tobacco barn in my excitement. Out of the mouths of babes indeed. Forget hypnotizing the daughter. It was her mother’s memory that could use jogging the most. So why not try it?

I wasn’t sure if it would help, and, certainly, it smacked of desperation. But I did know that I had to do something to move things along more quickly. And that I needed some new leads if I hoped to get anywhere.

Besides, I knew where I could find someone who might be willing to give my plan a try.

By the time I returned to Raleigh, gray clouds had rolled in to darken the afternoon. The old Victorian house that served as Peyton Tillman’s office looked even more unkempt in the early dusk. Lights gleamed in the office across the hall from Peyton’s, illuminating the shared space just enough to spotlight a funeral wreath that someone had left on the door. Bouquets of flowers had been placed on the stone steps leading up to the house. I wondered if anyone would do the same for me when I died. I doubted it. My clients typically wanted to forget they had ever known me. But that was okay, I wanted to forget most of them in return.

According to the sign, the office opposite Peyton’s offered its patients massage therapy, acupuncture and hypnotherapy. Presumably not all at the same time—though I’m sure that someone somewhere would have paid for that privilege. New Age philosophies had followed the influx of northern settlers to Raleigh, along with bagel shops and sixty-dollar hockey tickets. I remained a skeptic, but then I don’t trust medical doctors, either. I knocked on the door anyway.

It took a few minutes for someone to answer, and, when I got a good look at his sleepy expression, I suspected I’d caught him napping. He was very tall and dressed in a torn lavender T-shirt. A pair of jeans drooped around his bony hips. No shoes. Long brown hair scraggled to below his collarbone, and his pointed chin could have used a beard, except that then he would have looked just like Jesus—and have had to endure everyone telling him so.

“Yes?” he said pleasantly. “Can I help you?” He looked me over. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to help with injuries like that.” His voice was a warm baritone.

“I’m not here for treatment,” I explained. “I’m a private detective looking into Peyton Tillman’s death.”

He motioned me inside. “His dying is about the worst thing that’s happened since I moved here from Seattle. Why are you investigating? You don’t think he killed himself?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t.”

He gestured toward a lumpy red couch and I sat down gratefully, aware of every sore ligament in my body. The hospital painkillers had worn off and I was fresh out of the illegal kind. A faintly smoky smell permeated the air and I sniffed, trying to place the aroma.

“Sage sticks,” he explained. “American Indians use them to clear a space of evil spirits. I’m trying to cleanse the house of the sorrow that Peyton’s death has brought. I could feel it in the air this morning when I came to work.” He wiggled his hands through the air like one of those goofy modern dancers. “Premature death robs the universe of energy. Violent death tears at its fabric.”

“So you don’t think it was suicide either?” I asked wryly.

“I know it wasn’t,” he answered, folding his frame into a bright-yellow beanbag chair. “I told the cops the same thing when they asked me about his state of mind. They were here, you know. The cops. A patrol car arrived the night he died. I think to guard the office. They stayed all night and the next morning tons of cops were here going through his papers. His old secretary Mrs. Rollins showed up to glare. She gave them an earful about catching his killer. She’s not buying suicide, either.”

I had to give Detective Morrow credit for sending a car over so promptly to seal the office. A lot of detectives would have missed that. I needed to treat that woman with respect— or she’d fry my butt.

“You live here, too?” I asked, glancing around the cluttered room.

He looked embarrassed. “Right now I do. My girlfriend and I broke up and she got the apartment. I haven’t found a new place yet.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Lord, but love made people stupid. Everyone knows that the first rule of thumb when living together is: make sure it’s your name on the lease.

“How well did you know Peyton Tillman?” I asked.

“He was a regular patient of mine,” the therapist explained. “I swapped him for legal work. I think he was really just doing me a favor. We talked a lot during our sessions. He’d been relatively happy lately. His life was in balance. He enjoyed his work and loved the woman he was going to marry.” He pulled one long leg back against his chest, stretching the muscles while he spoke. “That’s why I told the police: no way Peyton killed himself.”

“What were you treating him for?” I asked.

“Peyton came to me for acupuncture, mainly. He had back problems.” The man paused, as if hesitant to break the confidence of a dead man. “If you’d ever seen his back, you’d know why. It looked like a road map of welts and scars. I don’t know exactly what happened to him in the war, but I do know that he was frequently in pain. And that he seemed to think my treatments helped.”

“You can help with pain?” I asked, acutely aware that my entire body felt as if I’d been pureed in a blender.

“Certain kinds,” he explained. “Peyton’s pain was nerve-related. Yours might be another matter.”

He unfolded himself from the chair and ran his fingers over my bruised face, then carefully touched my arm and calf muscles. “Tell me where it hurts,” he commanded. After a few seconds of being assured that it ached like a son of a bitch everywhere, he stopped. “We may as well give acupuncture a try,” he said. “You can’t hurt any more than you already do.”

“Okay.” I was game. “But that’s not really why I’m here. The sign on your door says you also do hypnotherapy.”

“That’s right. I trained in Portland. Some people think it’s helpful when they want to stop smoking or lose weight. It works,” he said, reading the skepticism on my face.

“Can you hypnotize someone on tranquilizers?” I asked. “And bring back repressed memories?”

“Depends on the person,” he explained. “Sometimes tranquilizers make them more susceptible. Sometimes less.” He stared at me. “Does this have anything to do with Peyton’s death?”

“Maybe.” I explained what I wanted and he listened intently, occasionally asking questions about Gail and the night Roy Taylor had been killed.

“It could be detrimental to the subject,” he said when I was done. “In general, people only remember what they can bear to remember. In her case, being incarcerated and heavily sedated, I’m wary that her defenses are down. I’m not trained to deal with any trauma that might arise. I’d only agree to do it if you let me make the call as to when we should stop.”

I thought about it. How many other hypnotherapists could I dredge up in Raleigh on a Saturday night? None, if you didn’t count the audiences being put to sleep over at Theater in the Park.

“Deal,” I said. “I want to go tomorrow when the prison is crowded with Sunday visitors and lots of families. You’re going to be Gail’s cousin.”

“You think?” he said, raising an eyebrow. That was when I noticed he had a row of five small gold hoops Cl gything running up and down his right ear. Those I could tolerate. I had a part-time naval ring myself. It’s the eyebrow hoops that get to me. I always feel an irresistible urge to rip those little suckers right off.

“She has a trillion cousins,” I explained. “Gail will probably believe you’re a cousin herself.”

“Peyton was a good guy,” the therapist said after a moment of silent consideration. “I know he regretted that he had been the judge on that case. For a while there, I even thought that maybe his pain had something to do with his guilt.”

“So you’ll do it?” I asked. “If I can set it up?”

He shrugged again. “Why not?”

“Thanks,” I told him. “I think Peyton would have approved.”

I called Nanny Honeycutt and set up the next day’s visit. She was skeptical, but I was persuasive. She even promised to do her best to get Gail to skip that morning’s medication. I didn’t want her melting to the visiting-room floor in the middle of our session.

“What’s your name?” my new friend asked me after I was done.

“Casey Jones. What’s yours?”

“Robert.” His face brightened. “Hey, Casey?” he suggested. “How about some ginseng tea and a session with the old needles? It gets pretty quiet around here on a Saturday afternoon. No charge for the service.”

Twenty minutes later, my ears, lower back, butt and calf muscles were studded with thin needles. I felt like a blissed-out porcupine. The world seemed to hum around me. God bless Robert, I thought drowsily, as I drifted off to Lala Land. Around me, the smell of sage wafted through the air. If this kept up, I might even consider wearing tie-dyed shirts. But never patchouli.

When I woke, it was dark and Robert was curled up in the beanbag chair, reading a book and sipping a cup of tea with the kind of maddening calm I can never seem to attain.

“What happened?” I asked groggily. “Where was I?”

“I’d say about two or three planes out of your body,” he said with a satisfied smile. “How are you feeling?”

I flexed a few muscles and was amazed. “Damn,” I said. “You’re good.”

“Think you can drive Cyou fa home?” he asked as he carefully removed the needles, twirling them between his fingers before plucking them from my skin with a delicate tug.

“If not, I’ll just fly,” I decided.

“So long as you come back for me tomorrow,” he said. “I was meditating about things while you slept. I think the universe is giving me a way to help offset the evil of Peyton’s death. I think it’s asking me to be an instrument of karmic justice.”

An instrument of karmic justice? And all these years I thought I had just been kicking ass. But I was willing to look at it in a different way if that’s what the heavens wanted. Casey Jones, karmic avenger. It had a nice ring to it.

I drove home to Durham, sore, but at peace. Tomorrow was indeed another day. That night, I was in bed by nine. It had been a long time since I’d spent a Saturday night alone. At least a week, I’d say. But I slept contentedly through the wee, wee hours with a single purpose—to heal my body for what lay ahead.

The next morning, I tried calling Bobby D. at the hospital to find out if his court reporter contact had made any headway. No one answered. He was no doubt having a personal chat with the kitchen staff. Disappointed, I hung up the telephone. It rang almost immediately.

“What the hell happened to you on Friday night?” a female voice demanded.

“Who the hell is this?” I replied.

“Anne Morrow. I assume you remember me?”

Of course I remembered her. Long and lean and cool and lovely. The girl from Ipanema goes stalking.

“How are you?” I asked in my most civilized tone.

“Tired. How else?” There was a silence. “There are those of us on the Raleigh Police Force,” she said, “who think that you know more than you’re telling about Peyton Tillman and his final splashdown. I am not among them.”

“You’re not?” I asked faintly, my heart beating faster. I cannot afford trouble with the police since I have no official detective’s license. Technically, many of the things I do could be construed as against the law if a judge wanted to get picky about it.

“No. I think you’re shooting straight. But I want to know what happened to you on Friday night. I got a call from a sergeant who was poking around down at the impound lot. Your car was towed there yesterday. He recognized your name from the Tillman case. He says your car is sitting there with Cg ts tat least three bullet holes in it. Care to explain?”

“I pissed off some crazy bartender a couple of weekends ago,” I explained. “Caught him stealing. He lost his job and blames me. I heard he was a gun nut. I think he was the one who ran me off the road.”

“You’re a very popular woman,” she observed.

“Yeah. Among all the wrong people.”

“Theoretically speaking,” Detective Morrow mused out loud, “if any of this had to do with the Peyton Tillman case, you’d let me know, right?”

“Right,” I lied.

Two hours later, I picked up Robert, the New Age hypnotist. He was wearing a dress shirt and tie above faded blue jeans. The hoop earrings were gone from his lobe. I thought his attempt at respectability was sweet.

He shrugged when I told him so. “I’ve never been in a women’s prison,” he said. “So I wasn’t sure what you’re supposed to wear.”

I laughed. “Since you’re a guy, I’d say as little as possible.”

Robert stared at me intently as I drove.

“What?” I asked.

He stared even more weirdly. “Nothing,” he said.

“Liar.”

He stared at me again.

“Will you cut that out?” I asked. I’m not opposed to being ogled, understand, it’s just that I’m accustomed to people ogling my body. This guy was staring somewhere to the right of my head and it made me wonder if I’d sprouted horns.