Thomas O`Callaghan - Bone Thief

“Now this is what I call two cops eating out,” said Driscoll.

“I forgot the wine.” Margaret hurried to the kitchen and returned with a bottle of Mondavi Fume Blanc.

Driscoll uncorked it and poured a generous portion into her glass. They ate and drank.

“How ’bout some music?” Margaret asked hesitantly when they had finished.

“Can’t see the harm in that.”

Johnny Mathis’s “Chances Are” filled the room.

“Dance with me,” she heard herself say. Was it her talking, or the wine?

Driscoll looked at her, startled.

“What’s the matter? Something wrong with two cops dancing to a little mood music?” Margaret felt as though she were stuttering.

A soft breeze blew, extinguishing one of the candles as Mathis crooned.

Driscoll found himself in Margaret’s arms, swaying languorously to the vocalist’s lyrics, enjoying the intimate company of a woman, a vivacious, fun-loving woman. The scent of her perfume enveloped the pair as they danced. It was the scent of early spring, and Driscoll found it to be subtle and intoxicating. His heart was beating rhythmically. He felt electrified, thrilled to be alive. As he closed his eyes, he felt Margaret’s warm cheek brush against his. It was pure delight.

Another gust of wind extinguished the remaining candle. The starry night’s sky illuminated the room through an overhead skylight. Their two shadows melted into one.

“Maybe it’s time to clap your hands again,” said Driscoll.

“Let’s not.”

Their dancing continued. She felt warm in his arms.

“I’m going to kiss you,” she breathed. And then, pressing her lips against his, she lingered at the edge of his tongue.

He did not resist. Her tongue was inviting, her lips moist. He withdrew slowly. Her lips found his again. This time she was more daring, more exploratory.

“What say we sit this one out,” she murmured.

“It’s getting awfully late.”

“Please. Just sit with me.”

A lassitude enveloped him. It had been years since he’d been kissed so ardently. For years he had not felt the alchemy of intertwining tongues. When she offered him her lips for the third time, he surrendered.

A ringing in the darkness interrupted them. He froze.

“What is it?” she whispered.

“My cellular. It’s in my coat.”

“Don’t, John. Don’t.”

Driscoll rushed to the closet, grabbed his phone, and flipped it open.

“Yes, Lucinda…Have you called 911?…I’ll be right there!”

“What is it?” Margaret asked, alarmed.

“It’s my wife. She stopped breathing.”

“She stopped breathing,” Driscoll sighed, “but the CPR unit brought her back. They got there just before I did. I could have lost her, Elizabeth. The call arrived when I was kissing my assistant. Imagine that. I’m kissing Margaret, feeling emotions I forgot I had, and the cellular starts ringing. It was three o’clock in the morning! I should have been home in bed, not out getting it on with another woman.”

“Is three o’clock after your curfew?”

Doctor Elizabeth Fahey was Driscoll’s psychotherapist. She had nursed Driscoll’s soul through his near collapse at the loss of his daughter and the onset of his wife’s coma.

“Curfew. What curfew? I’m not a teenager, for Christ’s sake!”

“Well, you’re the one out necking at three o’clock in the morning.”

“She stopped breathing. I’m out gallivanting, and she stops breathing.”

“Let’s not even think about the shape you’d be in if the two of you had had sex.”

Driscoll looked at her. “You’re really off to the races now.”

“Tell me you don’t see the message here.”

“So, this is all about guilt?”

“Irish Catholic guilt.”

Driscoll slouched back in his chair. “I know I’m gonna sound like a broken record, but I still don’t think you understand how much I miss my wife. She was my first love, remember, the first woman in my life. I adored her. Everything about her. I still carry her in my thoughts everywhere I go. Just the other day the phone rang. This woman with a French accent was looking for some guy named Claude. A wrong number. It sounded just like her. I hung up the phone and cried. Then I remembered she’s not dead. She’s just in the other room.”

His eyes moistened. “Like we discussed from the onset, it’s like I’m married, but I’m not married. I have Colette at home, but I live alone. I see her every day, but she doesn’t see me. She doesn’t even know I’m there! We both know this is not grounds for an annulment. Not if you’re a Catholic. Married for life am I. Do I like it? Can’t say that I do. Can I do anything about it? Damned if I can. What’s down the road for me is one lonely day after another. There certainly can’t be any future with Margaret.”

“There’s not even a present. Tell me more about this woman.”

“She’s beautiful.”

“And you’re a handsome man. That can account for the physical attraction. But tell me more. What’s she all about?”

“She comes from an Italian-American background. Her father, the bastard, was a cop. She followed in his footsteps.”

“Why did you call him a bastard?”

Driscoll sat back in his chair, thoughtful. His eyes drifted toward the floor.

“Margaret didn’t exactly have what you’d call a happy childhood,” he said.

“Who does?” Tell me about hers.”

Driscoll felt a pang of guilt. Should he reveal a confidence that Margaret admitted to him over a couple of beers? He scanned Fahey’s face. This was his therapist, for God’s sake.

“She was sexually abused as a child.”

“By whom? The bastard father?”

Driscoll nodded. “Then when Margaret was seventeen, the son of a bitch drank himself into a stupor and took his head off with his service revolver. If you ask me, the parasite had it coming.”

“Well, that explains a lot of things. Is she in therapy?”

“She was when she was a teen. I don’t think that continued, though.”

“The human mind is a very protective device. Often victims like Margaret are able to block out the memory of their abuse, or at least the emotions she was feeling at the time of her abuse. But what she’d likely to be left with is an anxiety disorder with both an attraction and a distrust of men, on an unconscious level, of course. Her father killing himself doesn’t help. It raises abandonment issues. How long have you two been working together?”

“Four years.”

“I’m willing to bet this is the first time you two are tracking down a serial killer of women.”

“It is.”

“Whether they block out their emotions or not, incest victims never fully recover. The earlier the age, the more severe the psychological trauma. A trauma that unconsciously determines their every move. Right on through adulthood. It’s probably why she became a cop.”

“What’s this serial killer got to do with it?”

“This isn’t your run-of-the-mill serial killer. He’s not using a shotgun to take out his victims. He’s boning them, dissecting their flesh. This is a very intimate method of murder. The intimate slaughter of women. Much like her own intimate slaughter.”

“So you’re saying there’s a connection.”

“Absolutely. She relives her destruction at every crime scene. Unconsciously, what resonates in her is fear. A child’s fear. Remember, it’s why she became a cop. And to this frightened cop, you represent the knight that is out to slay the dragon, this butcher of women. And in so doing, you’d be avenging her own desecration.”

“Her fear is what attracts her to me?”

“You are the way out of her nightmare. In you, she’s seeking a father imago.”