Waterlilies Over My Grave

Chapter 6

Chapter 12

The inner sanctum used for interrogation, employee interviews and lunch had seen better days. An industrial clock ticked loudly on the wall, a ceiling fan squeaked above them and an oscillating fan cranked from side to side. Paul sat at a long rectangular table that had undergone at least two coats of chipping paint. Cigarettes and a full ashtray lay in front of him, along with police report forms.

Annie sat on a wooden chair at this table, pale, tense and shaking. Red rims surrounded her eyes and perspiration ran from her forehead down her cheek. In one day, her life had gone from eager young psychologist, to homeless and hunted prey.

Mark paced the floor behind her. She was about to screech out “stop it” when he came to an abrupt halt. “Annie, what’s happening here?” He had his hands on the back of her chair and leaned over her shoulder.

Annie turned on him, crashing her forehead into his nose.

Mark leapt back. “Damn, Annie.” He turned his back on her then moved two seats down. He checked under his nose. Annie supposed—for blood.

Mark had been supportive on the way back to the station. He’d held her close on the elevator and helped her into his car. But the moment they entered the interrogation room he seemed to change. He went back to playing hard-nosed detective. Now, he didn’t seem to want to believe her at all.

She snapped at him. “Isn’t it obvious enough? I’m being stalked, harassed and threatened.” She paused and thought about her next statement. “And somebody is trying to erase me from the face of the earth.”

Paul had been sitting with his elbows on the table, his hands pressed against his mouth in prayer position. He pressed the bridge of his nose into his fingers and rubbed his eyes. “Annie,” he said softly. “Have you had death threats?”

She had to think fast. Either she could give them her history with Duncan and risk not being believed or she could stick to present events. She chose the latter. “Actual death threats . . . I think the blood on the wall spoke for itself, don’t you?”

“What do you think?” Mark asked.

Annie analyzed him. Unlike this morning, his eyes were sharp—assessing. He’d gone from a lost, exhausted wreck that stood in her office this morning, to a massive self-confident presence in the room. If she felt intimidated as a victim, she could only imagine how an actual suspect felt.

“‘w***e’s die’ and ‘What is given can be taken away’ both sound like threats to me.”

Mark asked, “What did ‘w****s die’ refer to?”

“Damn it! I don’t know. I hope you’re not taking that literally,” she said.

Paul cleared his throat. “Have you had anything happen before this? Something that might have happened in New York. Maybe some incident you’d never associate with a threat?”

Oh boy. “A couple of months ago—when I was still in New York, I . . .” The memory temporarily paralyzed her. It had been a frightening situation. A packed underground subway . . . A train screeching into the station, grinding to a halt. The people hovering on the edge waiting for the doors to open. “I was standing at the subway platform, in the front of the rush-hour crowd waiting for the train, when a wave of movement came from behind me, and the swell pushed me. I nearly fell onto the tracks.”

The clock ticked out the silence in the room. Annie’s gaze went down to the table avoiding the stares. She bit her lower lip and looked up. “Somebody pulled me back before I went under.”

“Good God,” Paul said.

“Do you think it was deliberate?” Mark asked.

“As I say, I don’t know. It probably wasn’t. Those subways are accidents waiting to happen. But the timing seemed deliberate.”

“How?” Mark asked.

Annie fumbled with her hands. “It came a week after my divorce was final.”

Mark rubbed the back of his ear. “And you think your ex-husband is responsible. This Duncan . . . ?”

“Byrne.”

“Who exactly is this Duncan Byrne?”

is Paul said, “A prominent psychiatrist in New York. Dean of the school of psychiatry at NYU.”

Mark made a clicking noise with his tongue. “Should have known. Psychiatrists are crazier than their patients.”

Annie narrowed her eyes at Mark. “Duncan is far from stupid. The man’s brilliant. It would be dangerous to underestimate him.”

“Okay,” Paul said. “But even so, this doesn’t make sense. He gave you a great reference when you applied at the mental health center. Why would he have done that if he hated you.”

“Why else?” Annie replied, on the edge of her seat. “So, he can keep track of where I am.”

“How much animosity was there between you when you divorced?” Paul asked.

“A lot,” Annie replied. “He didn’t want a divorce.”

“So, you initiated the divorce proceedings?” Mark asked. “If you don’t mind me asking, why did you divorce him? A brilliant and prominent psychiatrist. You obviously had a lot in common.”

“I had to get away from him.”

“Why?”

Good question. Why had she wanted to get away from the man who’d swept her off her feet, gave her a home, when she was about to be evicted, and taught her almost everything she knew. How much of the truth should she tell? Looking at Mark’s skeptical expression, she doubted he’d believe her. Even the NYPD who’d been on the scene hadn’t believed her. Better she kept quiet.

“Duncan became very controlling,” she said. “He tried to monitor my every movement. He insisted I only work on my projects with him—no one else. Then I found out he was using my research and claiming it as his own. When I started working with a group of other grad students, he accused me of having an affair. It got ugly. I . . .”

Annie shifted in her seat to meet Mark’s intimidating stare. She couldn’t go on with this. Why she divorced Duncan was none of their business. “Oh, bother!” Annie abruptly rose, her hands leaning on the table. “Look, I’m the victim here. Remember? Stop staring at me as if I’d just killed someone.”

Mark threw up his hands and stood. “Look, Annie.”

Paul gave Mark an almost imperceptible shake of the head.

Mark paced the floor until he came to the end of the room, where he leaned against the wall, arms folded. “We’re just trying to get some background,” he said, a bit gentler than before. “Look, I know you were looking around the bar for someone. Did you think he might be there?”

She nodded. “It was a possibility.”

“Okay,” Paul said. “That was before you knew about your tires or apartment. How long have the phone calls been going on?”

“The phone call I got in the bar was the second—no, third. The first came just before you came for your session, Mark.”

“Damn,” Mark said, almost under his breath. He got up and walked to the window.

“You handled yourself very well, under the circumstances,” Paul said, glaring at Mark.

Mark said nothing. He hunched his shoulders and crossed one foot over the other.

Paul nodded to Annie. “Go on.”

“After you left me in the parking lot, an SUV almost ran me down.”

Mark made some kind of growl, but Annie couldn’t make out anything intelligible. “Did you get the license plate number?” he asked.

Annie shook her head. “Couldn’t, it was splattered with mud.”

“Get a look at the driver? Anything?”

“No. The SUV was black. I’ve seen a lot of them around here. I believe the windows were tinted, but I was so busy getting out of the way, I forgot to look at his face.” Like she’d had time to get a detailed description of the guy. Right.

wayface“You said third phone call,” Paul said. “When was the second?”

When I got into my car. He said he was glad he hadn’t run me over. He also said he intended to have me dead or alive. He didn’t care which. So, to answer your previous question, that does sound like a death threat.”

“Annie,” Paul said. “Have you seen anyone who looks like Duncan around here?”

“No. I haven’t spotted him.” But I’ve felt his presence, she thought. Yes, I’ve felt him. “One thing you have to understand, Duncan is a master of disguise. He played leading roles in his college’s theater productions. He had his own psychodrama workshops. He can play any part he wants. If he’s here, he’d look like a tourist. He wouldn’t come dressed as Duncan Byrne.” She took a deep breath before she continued. “I might not even recognize him. He was that good.”

Yes, I’ve felt himMark shook his head. Oh bother! He obviously didn’t believe her. Annie closed her eyes to get his skepticism from her view. When she opened them again, she avoided his eyes.

“Mark,” she said, flat—toneless. “You don’t have to believe me, but if you don’t, Duncan will be twice as hard to catch.

“Annie,” Paul said. “Besides the vandalism, was anything stolen?”

“My jewelry is missing. There wasn’t much, but what I had is gone.” A sudden acute sensation of loss hit her. All of those memories lost, slashed or broken to bits on the floor.

Paul took out a small pad from his shirt pocket and a small yellow pencil. “What exactly was stolen?”

She thought of the engagement presents that Duncan had given her. The pearl earrings, a diamond pennant, her engagement and wedding rings. Her eyes started to burn. She wiped the tears off her cheeks with her sleeve and told them.

Paul pushed over a box of tissues. “So, this was a robbery.”

Mark shook his head. “With so much destruction? Robbers get in and get out. They might throw things around a bit to find stuff they can sell, but this just doesn’t feel right.” He walked back and sat next to Annie again. “Tell me about this research. Could somebody be after that?”

“Doubtful. A copy of my research is with a friend in New York. And besides, the paper was already published. It was my dissertation for my doctorate. There’s also a copy of it on my laptop in my office.”

“What was the subject?” Mark rested his hands on his chin and gazed at her.

“I’d written a paper on types of psychotic mental disorders. That’s what got published. But I hadn’t stopped there. I was expanding my research into obsessive personalities, especially stalkers. How they get that way, how the condition progresses, and the destructive effects on both the obsessed and his target.”

“You think this fits the profile?”

“Maybe—maybe not. They will make harassing phone calls, show up at your house, follow you around. Usually, take something . . .”

“He did.” Mark pointed out.

“Yes, but he wouldn’t destroy everything.”

Paul leaned back. “Did you recognize his voice?”

Annie shrugged. “Yes . . . No. He had an eerie tone. Kind of sing songy—like the inflection of a child.”

Mark threw up his hands. “So, you’re not sure it was Duncan. It could have been someone else?”

Annie bristled from Mark’s continued disbelief. “No. He knew too much about me. Who else could it have been?”

Mark shook his head. “Why the hell are we even having this conversation? This psychotic personality on the phone doesn’t sound to me like a prominent psychiatrist. You haven’t seen him here. It’s more like a robbery staged to look like vandalism or retribution.”

Mark’s almost-brutal accusation stung. “Do you know what a prominent psychiatrist sounds like? Look, it’s been a long, rotten day. Probably ranks among the worst I’ve ever had. For you to sit here and be so hostile . . .” The sheer force of the hurt forced a groan and a flood of tears. Keep control. Don’t lose it.

Keep control. Don’t lose it.Annie grabbed a hand full of tissues and dabbed her eyes. With all the patience she could muster, she said, “Because, Mark, Duncan was the only person that called me Annabelle Lee.”

“Your name is Annabelle.”

“First of all, everyone who knows me calls me Annie. Second, my name is Annabelle not Annabelle Lee. Duncan loved the Edgar Alan Poe poem so much, he’d call me that all the time. Third, why would a thief s***h my tires and kill my cat?” She bit her lip refraining from calling him an i***t.

Mark’s face clouded over. He conceded. “I can see how you’d come to that conclusion.”

Paul slapped his hands on the table. “Well, we’ll need to continue this tomorrow. There’s a lot more I want to know about your relationship with this man.”

“Me too,” Mark said.

“But first, let me see your cell phone.”

“My cell phone?”

“Yeah. I want to check those incoming call numbers.”

Annie dug down into her purse and pulled it up, handing it over.

She came around behind him and watched him click on the call log to received calls. The last few numbers had a New Jersey area code.

“Does that number mean anything to you?” Paul asked.

Annie shook her head. “No. That doesn’t look familiar at all. I don’t even know anybody in New Jersey.”

Paul wrote down several numbers and handed the phone back. “Look, I think you should keep this off for a while.”

“Okay.”

“And since it’s a crime scene, you won’t be able to go home.

You’ll need a place to stay.”

Annie shivered at the thought. “I could never go back to that apartment. I’d never feel safe in there again. Maybe a motel?”

“No motels,” Paul said. “I want you somewhere where you’ll be protected.” He looked at Mark, and a slow grin came over his face. “And I know the perfect place. Mark, I’ve just put you back on the job.”

Mark blinked and looked wary. “Oh yeah? Doing what?”

“You’ll be Annie’s bodyguard for the duration of the two weeks you’re off the street.”

Mark looked like he was going to choke. “Not a chance. I’m not going to spend the next two weeks babysitting.”

You supercilious bastard, Annie thought, but kept her mouth shut.

“I don’t think you have a choice.” Paul snapped, frowning at him. “This is an assignment, not a damned date.” He looked back at Annie and nodded. “And I know exactly where you’ll go.”

“Where?” Annie and Mark asked, almost at the same time.

“To your house, Mark.”

Annie’s jaw clenched. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I’m sure Mark has far too many women there as it is.”

Mark looked at her through cold dark eyes.

But Paul was shaking his head. “No, only one. You’ll go to his mother’s house not his apartment. Julia Driscoll . . .”

Mark glared, then sighed.

Overall, this had been a day from hell.