The Door To December Part 4

Dan said, 'I think he put your daughter in this chair-'

'No.'

'-and I think he and Hoffritz and G.o.d knows who else-'

'No.'

'-tortured her,' Dan finished.

'No.'

'It's in the journal I told you about.'

'But-'

'I think they were using ... what you called "aversion" therapy to teach her to control her brain-wave patterns.'

The thought of Melanie strapped in that chair was so disturbing that Laura McCaffrey was profoundly transformed by it. She no longer looked simply burnt out, no longer just ashen; she was now paler than pale, cadaverously pallid. Her eyes appeared to sink deeper into her skull and lose much of their l.u.s.ter. Her face sagged like softening wax. She said, 'But ... but that doesn't make sense. Aversion therapy is the least likely way to learn biofeedback techniques.'

Dan had the urge to put his arms around her, hold her close, smooth her hair, comfort her. Kiss her. He had found her appealing from the moment he had seen her, but until now he'd felt no romantic stirrings for her. And that was par for the course, wasn't it? He always fell for the helpless kittens, the broken dolls, the ones who were lost or weak or in trouble. And he always wound up wishing that he had never gotten involved. Laura McCaffrey hadn't initially held any attraction for him because she had been self-confident, self-possessed, totally in control. As soon as she'd begun to flounder, as soon as she could no longer conceal her fear and confusion, he was drawn to her. Nick Hammond, another homicide detective and smarta.s.s, had accused Dan of having a mother-hen instinct, and there was truth in that.

What is it with me? he wondered. Why do I insist on being a knight-errant, always searching for a damsel in distress? I hardly even know this woman, and I want her to rely entirely on me, put her hopes and fears on my shoulders. Oh, yes, ma'am, you just rely on Big Dan Haldane, n.o.body else; Big Dan will catch these evil villains and put your broken world back together for you. Big Dan can do it, ma'am, even though he's still an adolescent idiot at heart.

No. Not this time. He had a job to do, and he would do it, but he would be entirely professional about it. Personal feelings would not intrude. Anyway, this woman wouldn't welcome a relationship with him. She was better educated than he was. A lot more stylish. She was a brandy type, while he was strictly beer. Besides, for G.o.d's sake, this wasn't a time for romance. She was too vulnerable: she was worried sick about her daughter; her husband had been killed, and that must have its effect on her, even if she had stopped loving the guy a long time ago. What kind of man could think of her as a romantic prospect at a time like this? He was ashamed of himself. But still ...

He sighed. 'Well, once you've studied your husband's journal maybe you'll be able to prove he never put the girl in that chair. But I don't think so.'

She just stood there, looking lost.

He went to the closet and opened the doors, revealing several pairs of jeans, T-shirts, sweaters, and shoes that would fit a nine-year-old girl. All were gray.

'Why?' Dan asked. 'What did he hope to prove? What effect was he after with the girl?'

The woman shook her head, too distraught to speak.

'And something else I wonder,' Dan said. 'All of this, six years of it, took more money than he had when he cleaned out your joint bank accounts and left you. A lot more. Yet he wasn't working anywhere. He never went out. Maybe Wilhelm Hoffritz gave him money. But there must have been others who contributed as well. Who? Who was financing this work?'

'I've no idea.'

'And why?' he wondered.

'And where have they taken Melanie?' she asked. 'And what are they doing to her now?'

5.

The kitchen wasn't exactly filthy, but it wasn't clean, either. Stacks of dirty dishes filled the sink. Crumbs littered the table that stood by the room's only window.

Laura sat at the table and brushed some of the crumbs aside. She was eager to look at the log of Dylan's experiments with Melanie. Haldane wasn't ready to give it to her. He held it - a ledger-size book bound in imitation brown leather - and paced around the kitchen as he talked.

Rain struck the window and streamed down the gla.s.s. When an occasional flicker of lightning brightened the night and pa.s.sed through the window, it briefly projected the random rippling patterns of water from the gla.s.s onto the walls, which made the room seem as amorphous and semitransparent as a mirage.

'I want to know a lot more about your husband,' Haldane said, pacing.

'Like what?'

'Like why you decided to divorce him.'

'Is that relevant?'

'Could be.'

'How?'

'For one thing, if there was another woman involved, then maybe she can tell us more about what he was doing here. Maybe she can even tell us who killed him.'

'There was no other woman.'

'Then why did you decide to divorce him?'

'It was just that ... I no longer loved him.'

'But you had loved him once.'

'Yes. But he wasn't the man I married.'

'How had he changed?'

She sighed. 'He didn't. He was never never the man I married. I only thought he was. Later, as time went by, I realized how thoroughly I'd misunderstood him, right from the start.' the man I married. I only thought he was. Later, as time went by, I realized how thoroughly I'd misunderstood him, right from the start.'

Haldane stopped pacing, leaned against a counter, crossing his arms on his chest, still holding the log book. 'Just how had you misunderstood him?'

'Well ... first, you have to understand something about me. In high school and college, I was never a particularly popular girl. Never had any dates.'

'I find that difficult to believe.'

She blushed. She wished she could control it, but couldn't. 'It's true. I was crushingly shy. Avoided boys. Avoided everyone. Never had any close girlfriends, either.'

'Didn't anyone tell you about the right mouthwash and dandruff shampoo?'

She smiled at his attempt to put her at ease, but she was never comfortable talking about herself. 'I didn't want anyone to get to know me because I figured they'd dislike me, and I couldn't stand rejection.'

'Why should they dislike you?'

'Oh ... because I wouldn't be witty enough or bright enough or pretty enough to suit them.'

'Well, I can't say whether or not you're witty, but then David Letterman would have trouble coming up with one-liners in this place. But you're clearly intelligent. After all, you earned a doctorate. And I don't see how you could look in a mirror and think you were anything less than beautiful.'

She glanced up from the crumb-carpeted table. The lieutenant's gaze was direct, engaging, warm, though neither bold nor suggestive. His att.i.tude was merely that of a policeman, making an observation, stating a fact. Yet, under that surface professionalism, deep down, she sensed that he was attracted to her. His interest made her uneasy.

Self-conscious, studying the vague silvery tracks of rain on the black window, she said' 'I had a terrible inferiority complex back then.'

'Why?'

'My parents.'

'Isn't it always?'

'No. Not always. But in my case ... mainly my mother.'

'What were your folks like?'

'They have nothing to do with this case,' she said. 'They're both gone now, anyway.'

'Pa.s.sed away?'

'Yes.'

'I'm sorry.'

'No need to be. I'm not.'

'I see.'

That was a harsh thing for her to have said. She was surprised to realize that she didn't want him to think badly of her. On the other hand, she was not prepared to tell him about her parents and the loveless childhood she had endured.

'But about Dylan ...,' she began, and then wasn't sure where she had left off.

Haldane said, 'You were telling me why you misjudged him right from the start.

'See, I was so good at fending people off, so good at alienating everyone and keeping myself snug in my sh.e.l.l, that no one ever got close to me. Especially not boys ... or men. I knew how to turn them off fast. Until Dylan. He wouldn't give up. He kept asking me for dates. No matter how often I rejected him, he came back. My shyness didn't deter him. Rudeness, indifference, cold rejection - nothing would stop him. He pursued me. No one had ever pursued me before. Not like Dylan. He was relentless. Obsessed. But not frightening in any way, not that kind of obsession. It was corny, the way he tried to impress me, the things he did. I knew it was corny at the time, but it was effective just the same. He sent flowers, more flowers, candy, more flowers, even a huge teddy bear.'

'A teddy bear for a young woman working on her doctorate?' Haldane said.

'I told you it was corny. He wrote poetry and signed it "A Secret Admirer." Trite, maybe, but for a woman who was twenty-six, hardly been kissed, and expected to be an old maid, it was heady stuff. He was the first person who ever made me feel ... special.'

'He broke down your defenses.'

'h.e.l.l, I was swept away.'

As she spoke of it, that special time and feeling came back to her with unnerving vividness and power. With the memories came a sadness at what might have been, a sense of lost innocence that was almost overwhelming.

'Later, after we were married, I learned that Dylan's pa.s.sion and fervor weren't reserved solely for me. Oh, not that there were other women. There weren't. But he pursued every interest as ardently as he'd pursued me. His research into behavior modification, his fascination with the occult, his love of fast cars - he put as much pa.s.sion and energy into all those pursuits as he had put into our courtship.'

She remembered how she had worried about Dylan - and about the effect that his demanding personality might have on Melanie. In part, she had asked for a divorce because she had been concerned that Dylan would infect Melanie with his obsessive-compulsive behavior.

'For instance, he built an elaborate j.a.panese garden behind our house, and it consumed his every spare moment for months and months. He was fanatically determined to make it perfect. Every plant and flower, every stone in every walkway had to be an ideal specimen. Every bonsai tree had to be as exquisitely proportioned and as imaginatively and harmoniously shaped as those in the books about cla.s.sic Oriental landscaping. He expected me to be as caught up in that project - in every project - as he was. But I couldn't be. Didn't want to be. Besides, he was so fanatical about perfection in all things that just about anything you did with him sooner or later became sheer hard labor instead of fun. He was an obsessive-compulsive unlike any other I've ever encountered, a driven man, and though he was wildly enthusiastic about everything, he actually took no pleasure in any of it, no joy, because there simply wasn't time time for joy.' for joy.'

'Sounds like it would've been exhausting to be married to him,' Haldane said.

'G.o.d, yes! Within a couple of years his excitement about things was no longer contagious because it was continuous and universal, and no sane person can live at a fever pitch all the time. He ceased to be intriguing and invigorating. He was ... tiring. Maddening. Never a moment's relaxation or peace. By then, I was getting my degree in psychiatry, going through a.n.a.lysis, which is a requirement for anyone considering psychiatric practice, and finally I realized Dylan was a disturbed man, not just enthusiastic, not just an overachiever, but a severe obsessive-compulsive. I tried to convince him to undergo a.n.a.lysis, but for that that he had no enthusiasm at all. At last, I told him I wanted a divorce. He never gave me time to file the papers. The next day he cleaned out our joint bank accounts and left with Melanie. I should have seen it coming.' he had no enthusiasm at all. At last, I told him I wanted a divorce. He never gave me time to file the papers. The next day he cleaned out our joint bank accounts and left with Melanie. I should have seen it coming.'

'Why?'

'He was as obsessive about Melanie as he was about everything else. In his eyes, she was the most beautiful, wonderful, intelligent child who ever walked the earth, and he was always concerned that she be perfectly dressed, perfectly groomed, perfectly behaved. She was only three years old, but he was already teaching her to read, trying to teach her French. Only three. He said all learning comes easiest to the youngest. Which is true. But he wasn't doing it for Melanie. Oh, no. Not in the least for her. He was concerned about himself, about having a perfect child, because he couldn't bear the thought that his little girl would be anything but the very prettiest and brightest and most dazzling child anyone had ever seen.'

They were silent.

Rain tapped the window, drummed on the roof, gurgled through the gutters and downspouts.

At last, softly, Haldane said, 'A man like that might ...'

'Might experiment on his own daughter, might put her through tortures of one kind and another, if he thought he was improving her. Or if he became obsessed with a series of experiments that required a child as the subject.'

'Jesus,' Haldane said in a tone that was part disgust, part shock, part pity.

To her surprise, Laura began to cry.

The detective came to the table. He pulled out a chair and sat beside her.

She blotted her eyes with a Kleenex.

He put a hand on her shoulder. 'It'll be all right.'

She nodded, blew her nose.

'We'll find her,' he said.

'I'm afraid we won't.'

'We will.'

'I'm afraid she's dead.'

'She's not.'

'I'm afraid.'

'Don't be.'

'Can't help it.'