“Jeezus,” Cara muttered.
I looked at her. “Cara, what is wrong with Anne caring about what happened to Philip? Did you know him?”
“No, but I fucked him.” She glowered at the rest of the room. “You know what is so damn hypocritical about this is that we are all consenting adults who belong to a goddamn fuck club. It’s not a dating service. Most of these guys are married. We are not their mistresses. If anything, they serve us. They have crushes on us. We do not have feelings for them.”
“Don’t you have any feelings for any of the men you have been with at the society?” I asked her.
“No.”
“How long have you been a member?” I asked her.
“Nine years.”
“How often do you go to the society?”
“About two or three times a month.” She leaned back in her chair.
“And do you always spend time with different men?”
“No. I have preferences.”
“Based on what?”
“Based on their performance.”
“Do you talk to the men you are with?”
“With the men I choose?” she corrected me in a clipped tone.
“All right. With the men you choose.”
“Yes, I talk to them.”
“What do you talk to them about?”
“What is the point of these questions?” she asked venomously.
“Why are you here if you have so much disdain for the process?” Shelby asked. “I made it really clear when I suggested that we come to Dr. Snow that only those of us who thought that Philip’s death was an issue for them should come.”
Cara didn’t answer her.
“I think that’s a fair question, Cara,” I said. But it was also too direct a question. I could have guessed as to what the problem was. But my being blunt wouldn’t help anyone.
“I think that what Cara is feeling is confusion,” Davina said, with amazing perception.
This wasn’t the first time that she had tried to explain how someone else was feeling. My guess was that she was either a lawyer or had some kind of psychoanalytic training herself. All her responses and questions and reactions to what went on in the group so far seemed impersonal, as if she were looking at the proceedings from a distance that no one else but Liz exhibited.
“Cara, are you confused?”
“Only about why we are even questioning our original decision about not breaking our rules. They are very clear. We do not communicate with other members. We do not engage in social activity with other members. We don’t try to contact any of the men or have any kind of relationship with them outside of the society.”
“And have you kept to those rules over the entire time that you have been in the society?” I asked her, hoping that my instincts were right. While she’d been talking she’d uncrossed her arms and seemed to stretch them out, palms open to the room, almost in supplication. It had been a small movement but I’d noticed it.
“And have you kept to those rules during the time that you have been in the society?” I asked again.
She didn’t answer. But Liz did.
“No, she hasn’t.”
Cara turned and glared at her. The look was vicious. Violent. Her eyes narrowed to slits, flashing even more brightly.
No one said anything for a minute.
“Cara, is there something you’d like to tell us?”
“No. Liz is lying.”
Liz was smiling in the way a small boy does after he’s put a frog in his teacher’s pocketbook. There was something between these two women that we would have to deal with eventually. But for now, the group had other issues that I felt were timely.
“Cara, are you angry?”
“You’re damn straight I am angry.”
“At whom?”
“At her.” She pointed to Liz.
“Why?”
“For lying.”
“I am not lying. I saw you and-”
“Shut up, you fucking bitch. You’re just jealous. You’re jealous of every one of us and you know it. It’s not easy for you anymore. You’re always saying it. That age is a terrible thing. You can’t exercise enough. You can’t figure out how to stop the process. You don’t like how the men react to you anymore and-”
“Cara, this isn’t helpful. Throwing accusations across the room isn’t going to do any good. Let’s try to get back on track and deal with how you feel. About what you are going through.”
“I don’t feel anything right now except anger at the mistake that we are all going to make if any of us shows up at the memorial service.” She’d crossed her arms over her chest again. There was not going to be any way to reach her now. My guess was that she had seen someone outside of the club, but I couldn’t confront her about that until there was another opening.
For the rest of the session, Cara stayed silent and the rest of us talked about the service that was going to be held at the end of the week. In the end, everyone agreed that as much as some of them wanted to go, it wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t do Philip any good, and ultimately they were honor-bound to uphold the commitment that they had made to him. And to each member of the group.
“We only have one thing that binds us to one another and allows us to be part of this, and that is our oath not to put any of us in jeopardy of our activities being divulged,” Shelby said toward the end of the ninety minutes.
It had been a good session. They had talked about their sense of loss and worked on their confusion about how to deal with a man they had been intimate with in one sense but knew nothing about in another.
By the time they left, I believed that they would all keep their word, stay away from the service and keep silent.
Thirty-Two
By 7:00 p.m. on Monday night, Jordain and Perez’s office was littered with used foam coffee cups and takeout food wrappers.
“Why the hell don’t we have anything? How can you kill two men and hide the bodies for this long? And now a third? Shit. Where are they?” Perez said as he poured himself yet another cup of the strong chicory-laced coffee that Jordain had just made. It was their fourth pot that day.
“You really asking that?” Jordain asked.
Perez shot him a look. Obviously, it hadn’t been an actual question. The two detectives were frustrated, tired and angry with the killer, who was so elusive.
“How much you think Delilah would hate it that we’ve given him a woman’s name?” Perez asked.
They’d taken to calling the anonymous killer “Delilah” because of the locks of hair that had been sent to Betsy Young, along with all three sets of photographs.
Yes, three. The third had come in early that morning.
“He would despise it. An affront to his power. To his masculinity. We’re really getting him but good by calling him that.”
For the second time in less than five minutes, Perez shot his partner an exasperated look.
The phone rang, as it had been doing all afternoon, but all calls were being intercepted. Half of them were from the managing editor of the New York Times, who was waiting for the police to give him the go-ahead to run the next story in the series, which announced that there was a third victim. Grant Firth. Forty-two. Doctor of orthopedic surgery at New York Hospital. Father of three girls. Husband of Donna Firth, who was a medical reporter for the Wall Street Journal.
“You know that’s Hastings on the phone,” Perez said.
“Of course it’s him. He can’t stand it. Every minute that goes by is one more minute lost. And if he loses too many of them, he loses his lead story for tomorrow.”
There was nothing about this case that pleased either detective, except perhaps watching Harry Hastings wait and beg. The paper could run the story when they said so. And not before.
The lab reports had all come back without a single break. The envelopes were a mess since they’d been through the postal system. There was no saliva on the inside flap or under the stamps. There were no stray hairs inside. Just the clippings put there on purpose.