City of Masks

38

The rape was a bomb that exploded that family," Cree told Joyce. "All the relationships blew apart, people scattering like shrapnel. Charmian learned of it and couldn't be with her husband any more but couldn't decide how to preserve anything like a family if she accused him publicly. So she started sleeping apart from him but otherwise made a pretense of normal life. Lila couldn't cope with what happened or with her feelings toward her father. She suffered from posttraumatic stress and became acutely depressed. Went off to school, broke down, came back, got medicated up, went away for good. Ron, I'm not sure how much he knew, but everything was going crazy, everything was wrong. He 'went away' by abdicating his role as scion of the illustrious family he now knew to be a complete hypocrisy. He retreated into self-absorption and self-indulgence. And Josephine left, too, fled the collapse of the Beaufortes – and probably the wrath of Charmian."

Joyce nodded thoughtfully. "So you're thinking it was Josephine, not Charmian? Who poisoned Richard?"

Of course Joyce would put it together fast, Cree thought. "Yes. Oh, Charmian would' ve wanted to, and she would've been capable of it. But her pride wouldn't have let her risk a public scandal. Above all else, she'd protect the family name."

Joyce didn't seem so sure. She sorted among her carefully ordered files and pulled out a page. "Richard's obituary says he died on January 7, 1972. Lila could have been still at home for Christmas break, or maybe she'd gone back already. How can we verify when Josephine left?"

Cree took the sheet from her and read it closely for the first time. "I don't know that it matters. Either she was still working for them, or she came back just to put something in Richard's drink. She might still have had a key."

"You think cyanide? Isn't that the one that smells like almonds? All I know is the old mystery movies."

Cree shrugged. It didn't matter.

They were sitting in Cree's room, drinking the hotel kit's anemic coffee with chalk dust in it. The curtains were wide to the morning light and the throb of activity on Canal Street below. When Cree had told Joyce she'd gone to the house again, Joyce had been furious at first, then merely negative and resigned. Only after a lot of reassuring had Cree been able to rekindle the spark of curiosity in her, her bloodhound's instincts.

Joyce tapped a pencil against her lips, thinking. "One question, though. Coroner said it was heart failure. How'd that get by?"

Cree had already found the answer. She showed Joyce a line from the obituary. "Dr. Andre Fitzpatrick – Paul Fitzpatrick's father – was the New Orleans parish coroner at the time, and he's who certified cause of death. He was Richard's physician and a good friend of the Beaufortes I've seen his name on the back of probably a dozen photos in Lila's albums. He was also the doctor Charmian called in to treat Lila when she fell apart. My guess is Charmian prevailed upon him to cover it up to protect the Beauforte name. She probably told him why Josephine killed Richard, and he agreed that it was justified, that punishing her would serve no interest. And that charging her would only make the scandal public."

Joyce poured herself the last of the coffee from the little pot, swigged it, made a face. "So you're thinking Richard really was, clinically, a multiple personality? That he's both ghosts?"

"It's the only way all the parts fit together. It fits with what I've learned from the ghosts and what we've learned from conventional research. It •fits Lila's psychological state and Channian's secretiveness. I know it's a pretty radical idea, but I'm going to assume it's the correct theory."

"So what's next?"

"Well, we hope Deelie turns up Josephine. Part of me wants to go confront Charmian, tell her what I know, plead with her to cooperate. But first I think I need to talk to Dr. Fitzpatrick again. We need to figure out a prognosis for Lila based on what we now know."

"So it's Doctor Fitzpatrick again? Here I thought maybe you guys – "

"Joyce. This isn't the time for – "

"For what? Life? Or just love?"

Cree bristled and stamped her foot in anger and frustration. " Damn it, Joyce, you are simply going to have get off this thing of – "

"Oh, no! Uh-uh, Cree – don't you even dream of getting angry at me!" Joyce shot out of her chair and stood defiantly, startling Cree with her intensity. She turned three-quarters toward Cree, legs apart in almost a martial arts stance, her narrowed eyes shooting black sparks. "Yeah, Cree, I remind you that we are alive, okay, and that life goes on, and you should neverlet all this stuff interfere. Well, excuse me! My attitude is you need a dose of life once in a while. No, actually, let's cut to the chase here – my attitude is that getting laid would do you a world of good. There, I've said it. You don't like that, I quit. Seriously, Cree, I walk out of this room right now, and you go ahead and turn into some kind of walking dead, zombie bitch. The metaphysics here are a complete no-brainer, and I'm sick of going over it and over it!"

Cree had never seen her like this. She stood open-mouthed, unable to respond.

Joyce was shoveling her files into her briefcase in a blind fury, blinking back tears. "Plus you owe me two weeks' back pay and severance."

Cree's heart felt wrenched in her chest. "Joyce, it's not that simple with Paul – "

"It never is 'simple,' Cree, not even for people with discernable body heat and a few remaining mammalian instincts, okay? But you've forgotten all that, I guess." Joyce snapped up the briefcase but then looked at it in surprise. "What am I doing? I don't need this stuff. Here, you take it." She flung it at Cree's feet. Then she grabbed her purse, slung the strap over her shoulder, and strode to the door. "All yours. And good luck."

"Joyce. Please."

Joyce stopped with her hand on the knob, her heaving back to Cree. "What," she said after a moment.

"Listen, you're probably right. But it's very hard for me to be with a guy who… thinks I'm nuts. It means we're not… not equals. How can I be with someone who sees me that way? Half the time he acts as if I'm a… a patient, a case… not a woman."

Joyce spun back to her. The anger was still bright, but it was conflicted and starting to come apart. "Well, I can think of some real easy ways to shift his perspective. It doesn't take a genius. A short skirt, a snug tank top, and the right attitude, Cree, does wonders for a guy's outlook! Suspends all that rational judgment damned fast. Every time."

Cree shook her head. "Paul doesn't believe in what I do. He doesn't believe in what I see, what I am. His worldview won't allow him to see it any other way."

Joyce took a step back from the door, biting her lips as her fury broke apart. She was still breathing hard as they looked at each other for a moment. Then her face puckered. She put out her shaking hand to Cree's cheek, a cool, tentative touch.

"Then you're just gonna have to change his worldview, aren't you?" she said softly.

It took an awkward half hour, but they patched things up. They were both shell-shocked, but Joyce had called it right, it was the kind of battle and reconciliation sisters had: Afterward, the combatants mustered on and somehow the relationship endured. They talked about the case for a time, then Joyce went off to do homework – mainly, to chase down a few leads Deelie had suggested for finding Josephine.

Finally, Cree also requested that Joyce call Edgar and ask him if he could come sooner than planned. She didn't specify why, but Joyce clearly got the message: If Ed wanted a shot at this ghost, he'd better come soon. Cree would need to move straight into remediation; they couldn't delay for a period of technological verification and physical analysis. This ghost had to be dealt with fast, before Cree fell apart or Lila succeeded in killing herself. Or both.

After Joyce left, Cree put in a call to Charmian. She spoke to Tarika, who said that she was out; Cree left a message requesting a call back. She called the hospital and asked to speak to Lila but was told she was asleep. She was recovering well, the floor nurse said, but she was on a sedative drip that kept her groggy. Medically, physically, she could be released at any time, but her psychological health was another matter; Jack and Lila's physician were arranging longer-term treatment at a psychiatric facility. She called Jack to arrange a meeting with him, to persuade him to allow her access to Lila, but he hung up on her. She called Deelie to check in about progress on Josephine, got her voice mail, left a message.

That left her just about out of initiatives. True, there was much to be done at the house – too much, in fact, a daunting task. Joyce was right, she needed some recuperative time. The mere thought of the boar-headed man sent her thoughts scuttling like panicked mice; her hands shook. She was afraid to go back to the place alone.

Of course, there was still Paul Fitzpatrick to deal with. For an instant, Cree remembered the reassuring yet erotic contact of his hip as they'd walked on the levee, his arm firm around her waist. The sensation had touched a deep ache of longing. Should she sleep with him? No, the fundamental barriers were still there. Anyway, it was probably too late: They'd fought too hard, too many times. And Edgar would be here soon, and there was no way in hell Cree would subject him to witnessing her having an intimate relationship with someone else.

But Joyce was right that she had to change Paul's worldview. Cree couldn't stay in New Orleans forever to be available to Lila in the long term; Cree might be able to banish the ghost, but she couldn't banish what had happened when Richard was alive. And neither Paul nor any other therapist could effectively treat Lila unless he or she accepted the literal reality of the ghost – if for no other reason than that Lila did not need one more person urging her to deny, diminish, "selectively reinterpret," or forget another crucial and traumatic experience.

No. With bone-deep certainty, Cree knew the opposite was true: To survive, Lila had to face the ghost herself, to achieve her own victory over or reconciliation with her tormentor. Exposing her to the ghost again would put her in mortal danger, but so would pretending that the original or the spectral rapes hadn't happened.

Which meant she had to go back to the house. And there would be no way to get Lila back there, over the objections of Jack and no doubt Charmian, without Paul's help.

Cree stared at the phone for a moment, feeling the pulse accelerate in her throat, and finally dialed his home number. Machine. Then she called his office and was told by his secretary that he was not in today. She had just set down the receiver when it rang, making her jump. She snatched it up again.

"Paul?"

"I sound like a Paul to you?"

"Deelie!"

"No, it's the ghost of Jean Laffite!" Deelie's voice sounded a little hoarse, but there was definitely warmth and a smile in it. "Hey, Miz Black, I been up half the night. Legwork, my specialty? Mainly talkin' to a lot of old, old ladies. And, girl, you do now owe me major big. I believe I've found your Josephine!"