The Prodigy Part 25

Barrett clasped her hands beneath her chin and waited. She wanted to call Hobbs, and share the information from Housmann. And yes, she admitted to herself, she wanted the rea.s.surance of his physicality, his humor. But there was something else he had that she needed. It was a difference in logic that made him a brilliant detective. Prior to the catastrophe that had ruined his career, he'd rocketed through the bureau and achieved the rarely granted rank of Detective First Cla.s.s. His promotion to deputy chief was based on years of superb work that ran the gamut from high-profile serial killers to overseeing the investigation in a white-collar investment scam that could have left thousands of city employees robbed of their pensions.

While Barrett spent her days working with criminals, the mentally ill, and the sociopathic, her job didn't require setting traps-Ed's did. Typically the folks she worked with had already been caught. Any traps were merely a clarification of the perpetrator's thought process and motive. Jimmy, however, needed to be caught. She needed something concrete that could override the obstacles Anton might now erect.

Her hand hovered over the telephone.

A tentative knock came.

"Yes?" Barrett called out.

"Dr. Conyors," the door cracked open and Marla Dean's little girl voice wafted across the office. "You wanted to see me?"

Barrett stared at the six inches of s.p.a.ce in the doorway. All she could see of Marla were the tips of three nail-bitten fingers curled around the edge.

"Come in," Barrett said, not certain how to proceed with the skittish secretary. "If you could close the door and sit down."

Marla did as instructed; her long dark hair shadowed her face as she sat expectantly.

Barrett smiled and looked at Marla, as the painfully thin woman sat tentative, her collar bones sharply visible through the neckline of her gray polyester blouse. "You've done something different with your hair?"

"I got rid of the gray," she admitted.

"It's good ... you've been here a long time," Barrett commented as she slowly opened her top desk drawer.

"Yes," the secretary looked around, as her hands struggled to find a position of comfort. They reminded Barrett of birds in search of a safe perch: should they land on her lap? The chair? Should they hold each other or would they continually flutter about at the end of her bony arms, never finding a place to rest?

"How long?" Barrett persisted as she pretended to hunt for a chart.

"Almost fourteen years," she whispered.

Barrett paused, "I bet you've seen a lot."

"We don't see much out there."

"Do you remember Dr. Housmann?" Barrett asked.

Marla nodded her head, "I think I should go back out and help Violet."

"I won't be much longer ... you know I saw him recently."

"Dr. Housmann?"

"Yes, we talked about you."

"Why would you do that?" Marla gasped.

Barrett tried to make eye contact; the secretary looked away. "We talked about Gordon Mayfield, and your name came up."

Marla Dean stood abruptly, turned, and reached for the doork.n.o.b.

"Don't!" Barrett said.

Marla froze.

Barrett persisted, "I think you know why I'm bringing this up."

With her hand on the door and her back into the room Marla spoke, "It was a long time ago."

"I know. Now please sit down; I won't keep you long."

"I have work to do," the secretary pleaded.

"It won't take long." Barrett waited as Marla slowly turned around. She found herself guessing at the woman's age. An old forty or a young sixty? She wore an inexpensive gray blouse and dull-green cotton skirt, her synthetic-leather shoes looked as though they might have come from a 14th Street five-dollar bin. Marla clasped her hands together and with her eyes fixed on the floor, she waited.

"How long did you know Dr. Mayfield?" Barrett asked.

"Why do you have to bring this up?" Marla asked. "It was a long time ago."

"I know," Barrett said, "but it has bearing on a case I'm currently working on."

"Jimmy Martin," Marla whispered.

"Yes. So you know about the connection?" Barrett asked, while trying to reconcile Marla's wispy voice with that of her mystery caller. "Tell me what you know about that."

"I helped him."

"Who?"

"Gordon. He couldn't type." Marla dabbed at the corners of her down-turned eyes with the back of her sleeve.

"Are you okay?"

"I don't want to talk about this. I should have found another job after he ... died. But it's like I was frozen here and Dr. Housmann told me that it wouldn't be necessary, that it wasn't my fault; so I stayed."

"So how did you know about Jimmy?"

"Gordon told me who they all were. I didn't know that was something he wasn't supposed to do. But Gordon didn't care a lot about other people's rules. If he had, he'd never have loved me."

Barrett reached across her desk and retrieved a mostly empty box of tissues. "Here," she handed them to Marla. "You loved him?"

"At first I thought he just wanted to have s.e.x with me. He made so many promises, but then I guess he must have fallen in love with me." She said the last words slowly, testing them out like they were a piece of thin ice that might not hold her weight. "He told me that he loved me, but men say that."

"They do," Barrett agreed. "What made him different?"

"His actions. 'By their fruit you shall know them'," Marla answered. "He got me out of that place, found me a job, never hit me, and if he was seeing other women I never found out about it."

Barrett listened as Marla laid out her criteria for a good man. "Did you love him?"

"I'm crying, aren't I?"

"Yes, but tears can mean different things."

"I don't know," she whispered letting her long hair fall forward, hiding her sharp features behind its curtain. "Everyone talks about love, but I don't know what it is. Maybe I loved Gordon, maybe I was just grateful. I cried when he died. After all these years I still cry when I think about him. So I try not to think about him."

"Do you know why he jumped?"

"He didn't jump!" Marla said, her voice taking on an uncharacteristic force.

"How can you know?" Barrett asked, wondering at the change.

"I knew Gordon; that's how I know. People kill themselves because they can't see a future; Gordon lived in his future. He had so many plans, so many things he was going to do. That's one thing about men, and a lot about Gordon, they talk about themselves. I thought he was so smart, I liked to listen to his plans. Sometimes I'd even tell myself that he'd marry me and I'd start to see a future too. But I knew that was never going to happen."

"How come?"

"Look at what happened when people found out about us. I didn't know it was so wrong."

"Maybe that's why he jumped?" Barrett offered, and immediately regretted her lack of tact.

"No," Marla stated.

"How can you be so certain?"

"He told me that it didn't matter, that they'd give him a slap on the wrist and as long as I kept my mouth shut, nothing would happen."

"He could have lost his job, maybe his license to practice."

Marla glanced up quickly. She shook her head, "I'm sure you know what you're talking about, but that's not how he saw it. I just figured he'd stop seeing me; I'd keep my mouth shut, I owed him that. I even started to look for another job, but it's not easy for me. Maybe now I could do it, but back then ... .How do you tell an employer why you were at Croton for four years? At least here it wasn't such a big deal. Only Gordon and Dr. Housmann knew."

"Why were you at Croton?"

"You don't know; Housmann didn't tell you?"

"A little, but I'd rather hear it from you."

"Why? It's ancient history, better to leave it alone."

Barrett wondered, was there a warning in her words? While this voice was different from her caller, the message sounded similar. "You don't have to tell me," Barrett offered, "but it could help me with my case."

"Jimmy Martin, again. I should have known. I told him not to use Jimmy's case."

"Really? How come?"

"You have to be careful with some people. In my case you have to be careful with everyone. Gordon never understood that. He thought that the things people did to end up at Croton couldn't touch him. He never took it seriously; he should have ... and you should too."

Barrett startled as the secretary made fleeting eye contact; Marla was her mystery caller. "But why Jimmy? Did you warn him about other cases?"

"You ask so many questions ... Jimmy had people looking out for him; the others didn't."

"Who?"

"His sister for a start. She made it clear to Gordon that he wasn't to publish Jimmy's story."

"How did she even know?"

"I'm not sure, probably Jimmy told her. Although, the way Gordon interviewed people wasn't like the rest of them. I think most of them didn't even remember what they'd told him."

"Why's that?"

"He'd give you a shot first, and then you'd still be awake, but not all the way. Almost like you were dreaming."

"He interviewed you that way?"

"Yes, but it wasn't a bad thing. I sometimes thought that's why he worked so hard to get me released."

"Because of the injection?"

"No, because of the truth. I could hear the words leaving my mouth; it was so easy to tell him everything. I wasn't ashamed; I didn't even cry. That used to be my problem; I had too many tears. They'd get so I couldn't speak. I couldn't stop myself. I got diagnosed as having a psychotic depression. I took a lot of pills for that but nothing stopped the tears. That is until Gordon came along."

"What was different with him?"

"I'm trying to tell you. I wasn't even his patient. He was writing an article about women who kill. Isn't it funny? That's how we met. I sometimes wondered what would happen if we did get married. What would we tell people, or our children, about how we first met? Isn't that something married couples do? 'Well,' I'd say, 'I was in the nut house after lighting my first husband on fire and Daddy wanted to interview me, because I'd killed the b.a.s.t.a.r.d.' Not exactly something you put on a greeting card."

"No," Barrett agreed, feeling badly that she'd never really noticed Marla after all these years. "You mentioned Jimmy's sister, what did you know about her?"

"Just that she called Gordon. He didn't tell me a lot about it, and then some lawyers came around, basically saying that there'd 'be problems' if he used Jimmy's case."

"How did he respond?"

"He didn't. He thought they'd get over it. 'Old news' he'd say. After a couple weeks he figured everyone would forget it. Plus, he couldn't see the Martin family wanting to bring a case."

"Because?"

"You read the article?"

"Yes."

"Too much negative publicity. Martin's family is big money. He didn't think they'd want to rehash the stories about Jimmy, and all of the other stuff. Jimmy was the one they locked up, but the entire family was sick."

"Did you know Jimmy?"

"I guess. Croton's a big place, but not that big. He wasn't on my unit, but I'd see him at a.s.semblies. You could tell that he was having a hard time of it."

"How?"

"I don't know, maybe I didn't think about it at the time, but when I was writing up his case, I started to think about things," Marla glanced at Barrett. "Like he was by himself whenever I saw him, and some of the things that didn't make it into the article let you know that people were bothering him. I know what that's like. And then people talked."

"About?"

"That it wasn't a good idea to mess with Jimmy; stuff happened to people who messed with him ... bad stuff. Like there was this guy who supposedly tried to pimp him, and he ended up getting killed in solitary."