I tried to stand, but the room slanted and slid across the surface of the earth, so I went down on my hands and knees and crawled into the bathroom. After a short rest leaning against the bathtub, I stood up and checked the mirror. Lint from the carpet had collected on my face in streams made damp by my tears. My eyes were bloodshot. My pale face made the pools of bright red around my throat burn that much hotter. I leaned in to take a closer look at the violated area. The splotches were red fingerprints in the configuration of his hand on my throat. Remembering the pressure and what it had done to my body almost made me vomit.
The water when I turned it on was cold. I leaned over the sink and started with a few slow splashes to the face that would have made me shiver if I wasn’t already racked with violent spasms. As the water turned warm, I unwrapped a bar of soap and used it to wash, scrubbing every inch of my face with the pads of my fingers, trying to massage the pain out. I wobbled to the shower and started it running. The double bolt on the door did not seem formidable enough, so I pulled the dresser across the carpet to block myself in. It was so heavy it took me almost twenty minutes. By then, the whole room was humid from the shower. I went to the windows and checked those locks, then back to the bathroom, where I peeled off the little black dress, the same one I’d worn to visit the reverend, and disappeared into the steam. A long time later, I was on the floor of the tub, legs pulled up and gathered in by arms that couldn’t hold them tight enough, rocking back and forth and trying to stop shaking.
Chapter 23
HARVEY STOOD NEXT TO ME, LAYING THE crime-scene photos of Robin Sevitch on his desk one at a time, pausing after each one for emphasis. It was his subtle way of saying “I told you so.”
They were hard to look at. In the wider angles, you could see the position of the body, the way it slumped against the wall of what the police described as a concrete drainage canal. Her left hand was caught behind her back, but the other lay on the concrete at her side, palm up, with fingers curled in. She looked as if she were beckoning for help. Or showing her nails-torn, split, and painted with the brownish tint of her own dried blood.
When he got to the close-ups of her face, I reached up and touched the bruises on my throat. Her nose was broken, and she had a gash that looked as if she’d bitten through her lower lip. One eye was pinched shut by the cauliflowered mass around it, but the other gazed out from behind dark and bruised tissue.
“ Harvey…”
“She died of a broken neck.” He continued with the parade of grotesque images.
That her spine had been snapped at its most vulnerable point was obvious from the awkward way her head hung from her shoulders. An unbroken arc of pale skin pressed against the smooth curve of muscles and tendons that ran from the base of her left ear to the hollow of her throat. Absent blood and bruises, it gleamed under the camera’s flash, obscenely undamaged to be hiding such a catastrophic rupture beneath. My heart shuddered against its vulnerability, this last part of her that still looked like her, offered up by the exaggerated tilt of her head, undefended by arms that lay still at her sides.
I reached over and stopped him from putting any more down. “ Harvey, enough.”
He stared down at me, looking more vigorous than I had ever seen him. His strength was fueled by his anger. I had waited until I had flown back to Boston from Chicago to give him the news of my attack, thinking it might go better in person. I might have been wrong about that.
“How could you not tell me? How could you keep this from me? Why did you not call me right away?”
“I didn’t want to upset you.”
“A large man attacked you in your hotel room in a strange city and tried to kill you. Why would that upset me? I told you your plan was too risky.”
I wanted to pull my feet up in the chair and curl myself around my legs. This day had already been difficult enough. I had worked my trip home as scheduled, moving through a world of strangers like a big, raw nerve, wondering which of them might, without warning, raise a hand or a weapon and try to hurt me. It had taken a lot of energy. I wasn’t sure I had enough in reserve to properly defend my incautious and possibly stupid behavior.
“You told me the fake date was too risky. This was something different. Besides, he wasn’t trying to kill me.”
“Alex, please.” He took a step back to lean against his desk. “Even you cannot be this obtuse.”
“There was something odd about this whole thing. He left me on the bed, Harvey. After I passed out-”
“After he choked you to unconsciousness.”
“-he put me on my bed with my head on a pillow, and he left a glass of water for me on the nightstand.”
“How gracious. A turndown service to go with the strangling.”
“He was there to deliver a message, one that made no sense to me. He said he wanted me to leave someone alone, a guy named Arthur Margolies, and to destroy the videos. I looked up Arthur Margolies. He’s a big frequent flier on OrangeAir out of Chicago.”
“So?”
“I think he was after Monica and not me.”
“What? Why?”
“I think he’s a client of the hooker ring-of Monica’s, specifically-and I think she’s trying to extort him using videos. Probably sex videos.” I looked up at him. “That’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“None of this makes sense.”
“Maybe not, but I have to try to make sense of it so I can continue to function. I don’t think this guy was after me, which means I don’t think he will come after me. That’s important.”
He crossed his arms and hunched his shoulders. He didn’t look to be in the mood for new theories. He liked the one where we all stayed locked in our houses afraid for our lives, because that was more or less what he did every day anyway. “You believe the last-minute switch confused your attacker?”
“I believe he was set up on the trick, the man who was supposed to be hiring Monica for the evening. How, I don’t know. Maybe he had inside information that Reverend Cole was her scheduled date. It would have been easy enough for someone to check his reservation and see what hotel he’d booked. The big guy saw me come out, followed me to my hotel, and attacked me-by mistake. I got a message that was supposed to be for Monica.”
He reached down and began kneading the muscles in his thigh. “What does Monica say?”
“Good question. She was supposed to work the trip home with us, but suddenly she’s on emergency leave. I’m pretty sure he was after her and not me, and she knows it.”
“Do you think she switched dates on purpose?”
“I don’t know. I plan to ask her.”
I looked over and saw that his leg was beginning to shake. It started quietly but quickly turned into a jack-hammer. He gripped his balky quadriceps with both hands. I jumped up and tried to give him the closest seat-mine-but he wanted to go around to his desk chair. I helped him around the desk and held his chair so it wouldn’t swivel as he sat down in it.
“Are you all right?”
He nodded, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and mopped his forehead. I went back to my seat, and the two of us sat in silence. The only sound was the sharp ticking of the old mantel clock that kept perfect time because Harvey wound it religiously. His great-grandfather, a clockmaker, had brought it from Poland.
“This man,” he said quietly, “he could have done worse to you.”
“But he didn’t. I’m fine.”
“Alex.” He folded his handkerchief, looking more bereft than angry. “Am I so little comfort to you?”