C. Lawrence - Silent victim

"You are neither weak nor pathetic, Miss Perkins," Lee said. "In fact, you are very determined and brave, coming here through a storm like this to tell me something that is obviously so difficult for you to talk about."

In response, she walked over to the piano, its shiny wood gleaming in the lamplight, and touched the keyboard lightly. Her back to him, she said, "There's something else I should tell you."

"What's that?"

"I wrote the threatening note Ana received in the mail." "You? But the magazine was found at her house."

"Yes-because I left it there. After she died I wanted the police to think she had written it herself." "How did her prints get on it?"

For the first time since she arrived, Charlotte Perkins smiled-a sly, prideful smile. "I saw her reading that same magazine in the waiting room-that's why I chose it when I made my note."

"You would make a very good criminal, Miss Perkins," Lee said.

"But I only did it to scare her! I wanted her to stay away from my brother, not only for my sake, but for her own."

"Did it occur to you that you could be arrested and prosecuted for your actions?"

"There is something else I doubt my brother told you," she said, ignoring the question.

"What's that?"

"He sees patients at a public clinic in the city twice a month. He doesn't want people to know because it hurts his pride that he can't make his living entirely from private practice."

"Where is this clinic?"

"It's the mental health outpatient clinic at St. Vincent's." At the sound of the words, Lee's mind momentarily froze. "What is it?" she said. "Is something wrong?" "Oh, no," he said. "You know of it?"

"Yes."

He knew of it more than he was willing to tell her. He had spent a week there as a patient following his sister's disappearance, suffering from a clinical depression so severe that he was considered a suicide risk.

"Do you think one of his patients there could be violent?"

"Possibly. But I thought I ought to tell you, in any case."

She looked at him with an anxious expression, her thin lips compressed, worry lines crisscrossing her forehead like railroad tracks at a busy junction.

"I'll look into it. Can I ask you something?"

"Yes, of course."

"There was an entry in Ana's diary about confronting someone. Do you think that could have referred to your brother?"

She bit her lip again. "I suppose so. One day a few weeks after I realized they were… together… I heard what sounded like an argument in his office, and when she came out after her session, I could see she had been crying."

"So you think she might have wanted to break it off with him?"

"Perhaps. It was a violation of the doctor-patient relationship, after all."

Lee thought about how he had nearly violated that relationship himself, and a thin shiver sliced its way up his spine. He put a hand on Charlotte's shoulder and was surprised when she reacted by leaning into him. He stepped away and coughed to cover his own reaction. "Thank you for everything you've told me."

"What happens now?" she said.

"Does your brother know where you are?"

"No. He thinks I'm at the hospital all day."

"Do you have someone there to cover for you in case he calls?"

She smiled sadly. "He won't. He never calls me at work. He doesn't care for the telephone-he likes to point out that when we were first 'alive,' it had not yet been invented."

"Does anyone besides you and your brother know of your… relationship?"

"I used to think no one did. But now I am not so sure. I

think it's entirely possible that Ana Watkins knew-based on that smile she gave me when she left his office that day."

"So you think he may have killed her to silence her?"

She rose and began to pace the room.

"Oh, Dr. Campbell, I don't know what to think! I pray that is not the case-I pray it with all my heart and soul!"

"Clearly you can't return home. You're not safe there."

"Oh, but I must. If I don't, he'll suspect something, and then who knows what he'll do?"

"You can't. I don't care if he suspects or not."

She startled him by taking his hands in hers. To his surprise, her hands were warm and soft.

"Dr. Campbell, you must let me play this game out as I see fit."

"If you insist on returning, at least let me put a police guard on your house."

She laughed for the first time since he had known her. It was an odd, strangled chortle, the laugh of someone unfamiliar with joy.

"My brother is very observant. He would sniff out a police presence immediately."

"I can't let you-"

"You can't stop me," she said. "And now, if I might request my clothes back again, I must be on my way."

He thought wildly of holding on to her clothes as a way of preventing her from leaving, but he knew it was useless. She would leave anyway, and when she turned up in a stranger's clothes, her brother wold be even more suspicious. He went to the laundry room to fetch her clothes. When she was dressed again, she pulled on her curiously old-fashioned boots and threw her cloak around her shoulders.

"At least let me give you an umbrella," he said, looking out the window at the rain, which, though no longer torrential, was still falling.

"I will have to leave it on the bus," she said. "He will see at once that it isn't mine."

"Fine-leave it on the bus. I'm sure someone will find it useful," he said, handing her his sturdiest umbrella.

"Thank you," she said, pulling the hood over her head.

"No, thank you. You've helped us enormously. Wait!" he said, getting an idea. "Do you have a cell phone?"

She shook her head. "My brother-"

"Take mine." Grabbing it from the hall table, he pressed it into her hand.

"I don't-"

"Have you ever used one?" "Yes, at the hospital-"

"All right. Now, here's my home number," he said, showing her the entry in the contact list, "and here is Detective Butts's cell number. I want you to call either or both of us if you find yourself in any kind of trouble."

She turned her eyes up to him, and with the soft yellow hall light shining on her sharp, earnest face, she looked quite pretty.

"All right-thank you." She hesitated, looking down at the phone clutched in her hand. "At the very least Martin knows more about Ana Watkins than he is admitting. I'll see what I can find out."

"You've done quite enough, Miss Perkins. Please promise me you won't put yourself in jeopardy."

"I can only promise to do my best. The rest is in God's hands."

"If you can't think of your own safety, then think of how I would feel if anything happened to you."

"Very well," she said with a little smile that, on anyone else, would have been flirtatious.

And with that she slipped out into the night. As the door closed behind her, he was reminded of the night Ana left in much the same way-and of the terrible fate she met. He looked out the window at her retreating form, watching her sidestep the puddles forming on the sidewalk as she hurried down the street toward Third Avenue.

The house was dark and quiet when Charlotte pushed open the front door and crept into the foyer. The rain had stopped, but she could hear the slow, steady drip of water from the eaves, residue of the evening's downpour. She removed her cloak and hung it from the bentwood coatrack in the hall, then unlaced her soft leather ankle boots, which were wet and muddy. Martin hated finding stains on the lush Oriental carpets. It wasn't a long walk from the bus stop, but in the dark she couldn't avoid the puddles lying in wait for her among the cracks in the sidewalks. She propped her boots on the bottom of the rack and tiptoed along the side of the long maroon runner rug leading from the foyer through the front hall. She shivered a little as she dug her bare toes into the deep, plush wool-it felt so good after sitting on the bus for two hours in damp clothes.