After Varda reluctantly made his exit, Ruth sank back down into her seat.
Leo pulled over a chair and sat down next to Ruth. Nat took a seat across from her. “How long has it been since you’ve seen Lynn?” Leo asked.
“I... I can’t get used to that. Calling him . . . Lynn. I named him Lawrence. After my father. Peter, that’s my husband, he never really liked the name Lawrence. He thought it wasn’t very. ...” She shut her eyes for a moment, shaking her head slowly. “. . . very masculine.” She opened her eyes and smiled ruefully at no one in particular. “That’s a good one, isn’t it?”
She flushed, looking anxiously at each of them in turn. “There was nothing
sissy
about Larry. I swear there wasn’t. You see these . . . these people on those disgusting tabloid shows, and they’re always talking about how they played with dolls as children, dressed up in their mother’s clothes, hid in the closet and slathered on makeup—” Ruth’s mouth set into a grim line. “Larry wasn’t like that. He was never like that. If he had been, his father would have killed him.”
Tears spilled over and rolled, unheeded, down Ruth Everett’s cheeks. Nat dug into her purse for a tissue, got up and brought it over to her. Ruth took it automatically, but merely crumpled it in her hand.
“If he knew I was here, he’d probably kill me.” As soon as the words were out, her eyes darted anxiously over to Leo. “I don’t mean that literally. Peter’s bark is worse than his bite.” She tried for another smile but it fell flat.
“How long has it been since you’ve seen Lynn?” Nat repeated the question Leo had asked earlier.
Ruth hesitated, eyes downcast. “Ten years. It was the summer right before he started his doctoral program in psychology at Boston University. The summer he left his wife.”
Nat did a classic double-take.
Wife? Lynn was married?
How come there was no mention of this bombshell in the court or prison records?
She shot a look over at Leo. He was looking as taken aback as she was.
“How long was Lynn married?” Nat asked Ruth.
Lynn’s mother was nonplussed. “No. No, you see, it was when he was still Larry. It was only for a few months. I never even met her.”
“What was her name?”
Ruth shrugged, looking uneasy. “What does it matter? It was ages ago.”
“Just routine,” Leo persisted.
“Bethany.”
“Last name.”
“I think . . . Graham.”
“How did they meet?”
“I don’t know. A party. She was someone’s cousin or friend or something from out of town. I never really got the story straight. It all happened so fast. One day they’re dating, the next thing I know they eloped.”
“Bethany attended school?”
“No, she worked in some restaurant.”
“What did she look like?”
“I never met her.”
“Never? That sounds hard to believe,” Leo said.
Ruth was getting increasingly agitated. “Well, once, but just for a minute. She was on her way out. To work.”
“Your husband must have been pleased,” Nat said. “Pleased?”
“That Larry married.”
“Oh. Oh yes. He was. I admit Peter worried about Larry. There’d been some kind of an incident right after high school.” She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “I don’t really know what happened. I was away visiting my mother that weekend. When I got home it was obvious Larry and Peter had had a falling-out. Neither of them would tell me why. But then the two of them finally talked and after that, it seemed . . . okay. But there was still some tension between them that lingered.”
Nat felt a wave of pity for Ruth, but an even sharper pang of pity for Lynn. How hard must it have been to live a lie? To go so far as to get married? Clearly hard enough so that Lynn finally gave up the pretense.
“Did Larry tell you why he and Bethany broke up?” Leo asked.
“Yes. He told us that he finally confessed to her that he was . . . a transsexual.”
“How did your husband take the news?”
“He was upset.” There was a quiver in Ruth’s voice.
“And what did Peter do?”
Ruth compressed her lips.
“Did it get physical, Ruth?” Nat pressed.
“No.” *
Nat didn’t believe her. She doubted Leo did, either.
“What happened after Larry’s revelation?” Leo asked.
“Larry left. And we moved from Dedham soon after . . . that. First to Worcester, then four years ago to Westfield.”
“And that was your last contact with your son?”
Ruth bit down on her trembling lip. “Yes. I didn’t want it that way, but Peter ... he said he would leave me if I even so much as gave Larry our new address. As far as he was concerned, our . . . son was . . . dead. Peter even had our name changed so Larry couldn’t find us.”
Nat tried to keep it from showing, but she was aghast at this mother’s willingness to cut off her son so willingly—her flesh and blood—because of her husband’s threat. If it were her, Nat thought, she wouldn’t have waited for that unfeeling bastard to leave her, she would have left him.
“Are you married, Superintendent Price?” Ruth was looking directly at Nat.
She felt her cheeks redden. “I. . . was.”
“The simple truth is I didn’t want to be left alone.”
“What became of Bethany?” Leo asked.
“I don’t know,” Ruth said.
“You never saw or heard from her again? You don’t know where she went? You have no idea—”
“No,” Ruth snapped. “I don’t even know why I mentioned
it.”
Nat believed she never meant to mention the marriage. It had just slipped out.
Mitchell Oates entered the lounge, his expression grim. Ruth gripped the arms of her chair.
“What happened?” Leo asked his partner.
“Brain hemorrhage. She’s being rushed back into surgery.” Ruth began to moan. “My baby. My poor baby.”
eight
Because much of the patient’s post-operative time has been spent going through a traumatic trial for murder and then being in prison, she has had little opportunity as a woman to experience sexual relations.
Dr. Ross Varda
(excerpt from prison entry psychological report)
THE INSTANT NAT'S dog Hannah smelled the lo mein and ginger chicken with string beans, she was all over Leo. It was a toss-up who spoiled Hannah more, Nat or Leo. Either way, Hannah was definitely going to be sharing the Chinese.
“First you need to go out,” Nat said, ruffling the dog’s shaggy coat, then pulling her off Leo.
The phone rang as Nat was putting the leash on Hannah. She tensed, immediately thinking it was the hospital, fearing the worst. Although Lynn had made it through the second surgery, her condition remained critical. And she was still unconscious.
Nat gave Leo the nod and he hurried into the living room and picked up the phone.
“It’s Coscarelli. Yeah, go ahead.”
Something was wrong. She could hear it in Leo’s voice. “What happened?” she asked the instant he hung up, trying to swallow down the lump of panic in her throat.
“It’s Ross Varda. He’s in the emergency room at Boston General. Someone mugged him on his way home.”
It took Nat a couple of seconds to absorb this unexpected and disquieting news. “How . . . bad?”
“A good-size goose egg on his skull and a few cuts. Not too deep. They’ll probably release him tonight.”
“Cuts? Leo—”
“I know.”
“Did he see who it was? Did he say anything?”
“No. Oates is there now. Varda told him he was attacked from behind; it was dark, he blacked out. Look, I’m going to head over to the hospital. Sit tight. I’ll call as soon as I know anything. ”
Nat was not about to hang around waiting to hear from Leo. After he left, she took Hannah for a quick trip outside to do her business, then drove over to Boston General.
She made it to the hospital lobby just in time to see Leo and a shaken Ross Varda stepping out of one of the elevators. Varda’s complexion was almost as white as the bandage over his right eyebrow. There was a dazed look in his eyes. While he might not have been severely injured physically by the mugging, it didn’t require a shrink to see that, mentally, he was seriously unnerved.
Leo caught sight of Nat first. He wasn’t particularly surprised to see her.
She started toward them. It wasn’t until she was less than a couple of yards away that Varda actually spotted her approaching.
“There hasn’t been a further update on Lynn?” he asked anxiously.
“No,” Nat reassured him immediately. “I came down to see if you were okay.”
He forced a poor excuse for a smile. “I’m fine. Just a bit. . .” He .shook his head, a description of his state seeming to elude the doctor.
“Why don’t I give you a lift home?” Nat offered.
Leo looked even less happy. Nat was sure he’d been hoping to capitalize on the psychiatrist’s current wobbly state of mind to try to pump him for some information about Ingram.
Varda, however, instantly jumped at Nat’s offer. Probably because he didn’t anticipate that she, too, planned to pump him, especially as this mugging struck Nat, not surprisingly, as no mere coincidence.
She voiced her theory aloud to Varda once they were settled in her car and heading over to his apartment across town in Boston’s upscale South End.
Out of the corner of her eye, Nat caught Varda’s hand moving to his bandaged wound. “I’ve considered that possibility. That Lynn’s assailant sees me as a threat.”
“Would he be right?”
“Even if I could break confidentiality, which I can’t, there’s no way I can know for certain who jumped out of that alleyway. It would be pure supposition.”
“Which means you have a good idea.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“He might come after you again, Ross.”
“Do you think I’m not worried about that? I’m embarrassed to admit that I’m terrified.”
“There’s no reason to be ashamed of being afraid,” Nat assured him. “Given what’s happened, I’m sure that, as a psychiatrist, you know that fear’s a healthy response.”
He gave a self-deprecating laugh. “I wet my pants. When I was attacked.”
“Which is also a very common response.”
“Oh, yes, I know. It’s one thing to know the theory, another to—” He pressed his hands to his face.
They drove in silence for a few minutes.
“Are you in a great deal of pain?” she asked sympathetically. “No. I wish I was. It would be a welcome distraction.” Varda gave her directions and Nat turned onto St. Botolph Street, pulling into a parking spot not far from his building. Varda reached for the door handle, but then just left his hand resting on it. Nat thought at first he wanted to tell her something. But then it hit her. He must be scared to go up to his apartment. Scared that maybe his assailant was up there lying in wait for him.
“Would it be okay,” Nat asked, “if I used your bathroom? I kind of rushed out of my place when I heard you were injured and I haven’t had a chance to—”
“No problem.”
She could hear the relief in the psychiatrist’s voice. And maybe just a hint of gratitude.
Varda’s apartment was on the third floor. There was an elevator, but Varda headed directly for the stairs. He led the way up to his door. Nat heard his harsh gasp, but he was blocking her view. He stepped aside so she could see the door was ajar.
“I am fanatic when it comes to making sure my door is locked whenever I leave my apartment,” he told her in a raspy voice. “Someone’s broken in.”
“That someone,” Nat said in a whisper as she tugged him back toward the stairs, “might still be there.”
Varda’s color went from white to ash-gray as her words sank
Nat didn’t think he actually took a breath until they hit the street, running. Then again, neither did she.
“Nothing’s missing?” Leo pressed. Nat had phoned him as soon as she and Varda had gotten out of the psychiatrist’s building.
Varda shook his head numbly as he looked around at the chaos that was once his pristine living room. Books had been ruthlessly shoved off bookcases, several of them ripped and shredded; the large-screen television set was smashed on the floor in front of the fireplace, where it was joined by a stomped-on pair of high-end Bose mini speakers. The bedroom was equally in disarray, all the clothes pulled from the closet and bureau drawers. The bed also had been pulled apart.
The bathroom was the worst. Not so much because it, too, had been ransacked, but because of the red lipstick message scrawled across the medicine chest mirror:
keep your mouth SHUT OR you’ll BE WORSE OFF THAN LYNN.
No question now of the link between the break-in, the mugging, and the violent assault on Lynn.
“Any idea what the intruder was looking for?” Leo persisted.
“No.”
“How about Lynn Ingram’s therapy file?”
“It’s locked in a cabinet in my office at CCI Grafton.”
“We’re getting a court order for that file, Doc. I don’t need to warn you that it would be a felony for you to destroy or in any way alter those records, seeing as how they’re the subject of a police investigation.”
“I’m fully aware of that, Detective. And I assure you, police investigation or not, I would never alter or destroy a patient’s records.”
“Do you know who did this?” Leo asked the psychiatrist bluntly.
Varda was equally blunt. “No.”
“Okay, play it that way. It’s your neck.”
Varda blinked rapidly, shaken by Leo’s blunt remark. But he said nothing.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to stay here tonight. Anyone you can stay with?” Leo asked.
Nat was about to offer her place, but Varda said he could stay with his sister. He quickly packed a few things and then Leo and Nat escorted him outside and over to his car.
“You sure you feel well enough to drive?” Nat asked as Varda got behind the wheel.
“Yes, I’m okay. Really,” the psychiatrist assured her.
Leo turned to Nat after Varda drove off. “And where do I stay tonight?”
“I’m beat, Leo. How about if I reheat the Chinese tomorrow night?”
His eyes lingered on her face for several moments. “It’s never as good reheated, Natalie. But I guess it’s better than not having it at all.”
nine
I was treated like such a circus freak during my trial that I actually felt a weird relief when I was finally put away. How pathetically dumb I was. Being ridiculed and mobbed by the media was nothing compared to the constant abuse and worse I’m suffering now. The nightmare is only just beginning.