The Halo Effect

45

He made us omelettes early the next morning before the sun was up. They were fluffy and filled with ripe summer tomatoes, juicy and fat, that softened into the melted Gruyère cheese. We gorged on the eggs and the promised beignets sprinkled with powdered sugar and the bitter coffee that tasted much better in the morning than it had the night before. I was wrapped in his terry-cloth robe, which enfolded me in excess fabric. He didn’t let me do anything. And I didn’t mind. Come what may, it didn’t matter. I’d found something that I hadn’t even realized was missing. And with it some of my anger had dissipated.

While we ate, we talked about silly things. Noah asked me questions about what I liked to do, places I had been, trips I wanted to take.

“You haven’t traveled a lot.” He sounded surprised.

“I’ve been working too hard. And vacations were complicated. They allowed me to think. Without my patients to obfuscate my own reality, it was easier not to go away unless we were taking Dulcie with us.”

“We’ll go to Europe,” he said as he poured me more coffee and then spooned in the sugar.

I nodded.

“Do you like the beach?”

“Yes.”

“Once this case is solved we’ll jump in the car and go up to the cape. We’ll go swimming in the ocean. And it will be just a little too cold.”

“You are totally taking charge?”

“You’ll figure out how to even that out, but for now, yes. We’ll be lovers and you’ll be happy and we’ll figure out how to balance it all.”

The phone rang. Like a shrill reminder that a world existed beyond his apartment. Almost as if we’d both forgotten, we stared at the instrument on the wall.

And with a forlorn look he took the call.

“Jordain,” he said into the mouthpiece, and then he listened.

“How many of the places checked out?” he asked.

I got up, went into the bathroom and took a shower. When I came out he had taken all the plates off the table and now the table was covered with paperwork. Notes, computer printouts and faxes.

“They have a lead,” he explained.

I walked over and stood beside him, looking down.

“This is a list of all the religious-supply houses that have had orders for those nun’s habits in the last six months. Who ordered them, how they were paid for and where they were shipped. We’ve finally narrowed it down to four that fit the specs.” And he slid the list to me.

My blood started pumping in a way that was different from the night before but with the same intensity. I read down the list.

Six habits were sent to the St. Mary’s Convent in Minneapolis. Four to Our Lady of the Flowers retreat in Southampton, New York. Another six to the parish of St. Francis of Assisi in Bernardsville, New Jersey, and five habits to Our Lady of Sorrows in St. Martin, N.A.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up. N.A. I knew those initials. I’d seen them before, sometime in the past three weeks. But where?

I pointed to them. “What is N.A.?”

“Netherlands Antilles. Does that mean something to you?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I think so but don’t know why.”

“We have someone investigating all of these places. We may be lucky and actually connect this up. One of these places could have had a robbery. Or been used as a drop. We’re getting the receipts. Court orders, subpoenas. It’s the fucking weekend and we may not be able to get everything we need till Monday. But I have to go into the office.”

“That’s okay.”

“Will you stay here?”

I was surprised. And smiled.

“I’m having lunch with Mitch and Dulcie.”

“Will you come back here afterward?”

“I don’t know. I’ll call you.”

“Okay.” His eyebrows were raised. He was trying to read me and I wasn’t making it easy.

His phone rang again.

“Jordain,” he said, and listened.

I was about to go into the bedroom and get dressed, but something about the consternation that settled on his face and the nervous way his fingers started playing an imaginary piano on the table made me stop.

“When did it come in?” He listened while the party on the other end of the line spoke. “When will the lab have results?” He listened again. “Okay. I’ll be there in an hour.”

He put the phone down.

“What is it?”

“Morgan, I need your help.” His voice was weighted down with exhaustion even though he’d only woken up an hour before. I nodded.

“It’s about Cleo.”

Now the skin on the back of my neck prickled. I held my breath.

“If there is a connection…and since you think there is, I’m willing to go with that. I need to know more about who she was seeing.”

I shook my head.

“Morgan. You’re withholding evidence.”

“I am protecting my patient.”

“But you’re impeding an investigation.”

“No. I’m doing my job and you are doing yours.” I was suddenly back in my office the first time I met Noah. I had the book in my possession. And Detective Noah Jordain stared at me with his steely blue eyes. He wanted to know what I wasn’t telling him.

“Is that what last night was about? All this? Did you bring me here and seduce me, hoping that I’d go all soft on you and just turn over the book and all my information to you? Are you nuts? I have an ethical obligation to protect my patient’s privacy.”

His eyes clouded over. His spine stiffened. He stepped back from me as if I had flung hot oil at him.

“Are you crazy? You think I was using you?”

“It’s possible.”

He didn’t say anything, just turned and walked toward the bathroom. Each step taking him farther away, making it more and more possible that I was right. If I had been wrong he would have defended himself. He would have fought back. Gotten angry. But he was retreating. The way someone would if he was guilty.

I heard the water in the shower. And I started to imagine it hitting his skin the way I had with my fists the night before.

While he was in the bathroom I got dressed and left his apartment. I didn’t leave a note.

He had only wanted what he wanted. But I wasn’t going to give it to him. It wasn’t his to have. Cleo might still be alive. Her disappearance might not be tied to the other killings. I had to operate from that assumption.

I stomped down the steps. Angry with myself. I’d thought he’d been interested in me when it was the information he’d wanted all along.

I knew better. I’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book.

When I got to the street I wiped away the tears. What? I didn’t cry. But I was crying. Over him? A man who had simply figured out where I was vulnerable? Good for him. No. Fuck him. Just fuck Detective Noah Jordain. And then I laughed, a choking sound with a mix of the leftover tears caught up in the ironic chuckle. That’s what I’d just done, wasn’t it?