Mind Tryst

  MIND TRYST

  Robyn Carr

  Copyright © 1992 by Robyn Carr.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Cover design by Natanya Wheeler

  This novel is a work of fiction. All of the events, characters, names, and places depicted in this novel are entirely fictitious or are used fictitiously.

  For more information, please visit http://www.RobynCarr.com

  For Stephen Crandall and Charlie Ryan — my best guy pals.

  I would like to express my gratitude to my early readers and technical guides. First, Nancy Higgenbotham and her razor-sharp eye helped me to define a couple of key characters and pick up a couple of loose threads, not to mention giving me tremendous moral support during the writing. Kim Seller Garza, who has read early drafts for me in the past, is always a tremendous help and good friend. Also, she reminds me, she ends up always being right. Thanks to Geraldine Rose for helping me understand and appreciate the specialness of the practice of law in a small town. And finally, thank you to Police Detective Ricardo Garza; his technical advice was extremely important to the completion of this novel.

  1

  The truth matters. To my mind the first symptom of evil or derangement exists in the lie. How evil, how deranged depends on the magnitude of the lies. I think of that as I look around my house, partially remodeled, filled with boxes packed for moving. Again. I’ve been here a year. It took a year for the lies to build to a climax that could have cost me my life.

  In my work, in family law, I expect exaggerations. I expect an extraordinary bias. Clients do not admit that they’re jealous of their ex-spouse’s new partner as they ask to change the custodial guardianship or visitation. I have never had a client confess that he or she is molesting the child. I sometimes rely on gut feelings.

  I have been heard to preach on the subject of lies, especially to my son, Sheffie, who has been dead three years now. He was only eleven when I lost him; he stays an eleven-year-old in my dreams and imagination, though I desire to imagine him at fourteen. I would say things like, “You cannot know the power of a lie, no matter how small. And ‘If it isn’t the whole truth, it’s a lie.’”

  When I moved here to this small Colorado town, to practice family law, one of the first things I did was consider the creation of a partial lie. I came to work for and with Roberta Musetta, a sixty-year-old attorney who had practiced in this town for thirty years. I was willing for Roberta to know the details of my personal life but was not willing for everyone to know everything. “Let’s say never married, no children.”

  She looked at me levelly, her brown eyes hovering over the rim of her glasses. “I think I can understand the ‘no children,’ but why ‘never married’?”

  “I was only married for a year, Sheppard is my maiden name, and often when I say I am divorced people feel compelled to ask me if I have children. It’s painful for me to say that I had a son and he is dead. It’s a kindness, if you think about it, because no one knows what to say next. No one.”

  “How did he die?” she asked.

  “Or they say that.”

  Roberta was not intimidated by anything and she hadn’t been then, either. I could be so damned defensive about it sometimes. “He was on his bike in an intersection and was hit by an armored car. Witnesses said he was crossing against the light. He died instantly. He was eleven.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you, Roberta. I can talk about it; it’s talking about it with everybody that bothers me. One of the reasons I’ve come here is for a complete change of scenery, lifestyle, a new beginning. When a single mother loses an only child, there is a devastating kind of aloneness. It terrifies people and makes them behave more strangely than the bereaved. I couldn’t deal with the reaction anymore.”

  “I see,” Roberta said. But she couldn’t come close without the details. The zenith of the events was when a close friend, Chelsea, broke into my house when I refused to answer the phone and door one Saturday for reasons that had nothing to do with grief. I was avoiding a man determined to date me, I’d had a brutal week in court, I had drunk too much the night before and had a vicious headache, and I wasn’t expecting anyone. I unplugged my answering machine and phone so I wouldn’t be tempted. I turned up the stereo so I could hear it all the way to the bathroom and filled up the tub. The loud music drowned out the doorbell. I thought about gardening later; I thought of trying a good book. Imagine my delight when a young policeman entered my bathroom with my friend.

  I can’t criticize Chelsea; she is a dedicated caretaker. I had been depressed, overworked, and impatient; I had not left my answering machine on, my car was in the garage, and the stereo was blasting. Clearly I had hanged myself or taken an overdose of pills.

  I was determined to change things. I couldn’t stand the pity and I couldn’t stand being watched so carefully.

  “I shouldn’t ask you to lie for me,” I had said to Roberta. “I suppose I could try changing the subject or refusing to answer.”

  “It’ll be over quicker,” Roberta replied, “if you just say to anyone else what you said to me. I, for one, am unwilling to elaborate on the personal lives of friends and coworkers.”

  A part of me embraced what she said. Speaking of Sheffie’s death caused me pain, but his life had given me great joy. By erasing him, I would rob myself of that pleasure. He lived in my heart and mind; I couldn’t wish him away with a lie. Not even to save myself from some pain. Still, another part of me held reservations about revealing too much too soon.

  My task, in telling what happened to me here in Coleman, is to explain how a woman sensitive to liars, experienced in dealing with them, and intelligent, can end up in grave danger. End up nearly dead. My sanity abandoned me; my clear head, steady hand, and sound instincts were buried under an avalanche of lies and manipulations. For a while I couldn’t distinguish between the rational and irrational.

  It’s easy to find the beginning. I was sitting right here, in this room, on this curved white sofa. My knee was raised, as it is now, and I held a cup of coffee with both hands. The bookshelves were not there and the walls weren’t painted. There were boxes scattered around the room because I didn’t have the strength to unpack. I was depressed, and surprised to be. I had made a major change in my circumstances, and all the while I prepared to leave Los Angeles, I had been excited and optimistic for the first time in years.

  I had traveled to Coleman several times. A sleepy old mining and lumber town southwest of Denver, it’s in a pleasant valley with no highway. There is little mining now and timber is seasonal work; there’s ranching, some farming, hunting, camping, skiing, tourism. Coleman is one of several small towns nestled in what is called the Wet Mountain Valley; there’s the Silver Springs Bar and Restaurant, a refurbished hotel that’s one hundred and twenty years old, some raised sidewalks, and an old scenic-rail service.

  The town has been rediscovered by the baby boomers; young professionals who have opted to trade materialism for an atmosphere of safety and tranquility have come here. You can get your teeth crowned cheap — we have several young dentists. In the past fifteen years, I’d been told, the town had sprouted some bed-and-breakfast inns, an herb-tea manufacturer, organic farmers, and even a women’s shelter. The population is under one thousand, with another thousand in surrounding rural areas who would claim Coleman as their town. It’s one of the bigger unincorporated towns that speckle the large valley. Pueblo is the closest city, with a population of forty thousand. Denver and Colorado Springs are not out of reach to anyone willing to make the one-to two-hour drive. Most of our services — sherif
f, hospital, social services, et cetera — come from the Henderson County seat in Pleasure, some thirty miles up the road. Coleman does have its own fire truck and ambulance now, with an active volunteer fire department and auxiliary. There’s a great high-school football team, a major real-estate conglomerate, and a charming combination of the old and the new.

  Since I had somehow managed to buy a newly built tract house in Southern California, I chose a house in Coleman that was sixty years old. I was doing everything differently. I hoped to do much of the renovation of this old house myself.

  That day that comes to mind found me immobilized by depression. I had suddenly felt as though I had abandoned my son by leaving L.A. He had been dead two years already, but he was so much on my mind that I couldn’t function. I couldn’t unpack the boxes, put on my makeup, or make conversation. I had hired someone Roberta suggested could help me, a handyman-builder by the name of Tom Wahl. He was an average-looking, not unhandsome, friendly man. He had dark-brown hair, brown eyes and a nose with a bony bump on its bridge. Like most men who did heavy work, he had large, callused hands and strong shoulders. He wasn’t a great big guy, five ten or so, with a rather thick torso. He measured my wall for shelves, making small talk about how much personality these old houses had — each one different — and I looked as though I should be put to bed.

  I was preoccupied, sitting on the curving sofa I’d been so proud of, wishing I had sold it along with the other things I had decided to leave behind. I had saved for two years to buy it, and because of its white, sterile appearance, I kept it covered so Sheffie wouldn’t soil it. What I was remembering was the number of nights he had fallen asleep on it and I had either carried him or directed him sleepily to his bed. Damn. It could happen to me like that, without provocation. I didn’t need a photo or favorite toy to be jarred into that sense of loss. I was overcome with longing for my child. There were times I thought I was doing so well; then other times I thought I’d never recover.

  Add to that the fact that I’ve never had a robust appearance. Up until Sheffie died my friends would claim to be jealous of the fact that stress takes weight off me rather than induces me to eat and plump out. I have one of those pale, anemic complexions — if I cry briefly, I look as though I’ve cried for days. The suggestion of tears causes the rims of my eyes to become red, my nose gets watery and pink, and I splotch. I get hives and rashes easily. My hair is strawberry blond, enhanced by a rinse which became my prerogative at thirty-seven when I arrived in Coleman. Sitting there in old wrinkled clothes, holding coffee, looking pink around the gills, and being in that dismal, remote mood, I must have given Tom the impression I was a sad case.

  “Miss Sheppard?” he asked. “Who, ah, painted that wall?”

  “I did,” I said defensively. I remembered thinking that anyone can paint a wall. Not true. I had made it look far worse than it had — streaked and gloppy. It looked like a window that had been cleaned with a wet paper towel that only smeared the dirt around.

  “It could use a little touching up, don’t you think?”

  I looked away from the wall, not answering. It was a stupid question.

  “I could paint it for you,” he suggested.

  “No, thanks. For right now let’s just stick to the shelves.”

  “I wasn’t going to charge you.”

  That always gets my attention. I am suspicious of freebies. “Why would you do that?”

  “Well, you’d have to buy the paint. You need primer, too. I could write it down for you, tell you what to get.”

  “But why?”

  “Why not? I have the time and it looks like you could use the help. Roberta says you’re planning to do extensive work on the house.”

  I have no trouble getting right to the point. “So, you would paint that wall for me and then I would be sure to call you when I’m ready to start on the kitchen and bathrooms?”

  He was scribbling a measurement on his white notepad. When he had finished, he looked at me and laughed. “I don’t care whether you call me or not, Jackie. I don’t need the work. I was just trying to help.”

  “And I’m just trying to find out why.” I was sounding more and more difficult, more and more bitchy. It was as if I was challenging him: Don’t try to like me; I won’t be liked. But it was more than that; I knew there had to be a straight answer in there somewhere.

  “Because you’re going to have to call someone; it appears you can’t do it. And you look worn out. And you’re a friend of Roberta’s, who is a friend of mine. Though you might not be used to it, the people in this town help each other out when they can. The permanents, anyway. Where are you from?”

  “Los Angeles.”

  His tape measure sang as he extended it. “That explains it.”

  “Oh?”

  “L.A. is a different kind of place. I lived there for a few years myself. This kind of thing never happens in L.A. At least not without a catch. It happens all the time here.”

  “What did you do in L.A.?” I asked. I know I asked that right away and I also know that he didn’t give a sign of being uncomfortable with the question.

  “Paperwork,” he said, his back to me. “And I never liked it. I’m from the Midwest... suburb of Chicago. After a few years in Los Angeles I started looking for places outside of the city where I could get out of the smog and noise. I had tried northern California, Oregon, Washington, and it ended up I fell in love with Colorado. I don’t ski; I like to camp, hike, fish... I like it better in summer — one year I bought some land. I started to build on it, and without any concrete plans to, I had settled here.” He said all this while he was measuring. And writing numbers down.

  “We can put some shelves around the fireplace, like so,” he said, gesturing with one hand. “I think you’d like the look if I removed this old oak mantel and replaced it with bleached pine like the shelves. Let me draw you a picture first. Then I’ll write up a materials list and estimate.”

  “What did you do in Los Angeles?” I asked again, relentless as a typical litigator.

  “I wasn’t a carpenter, that’s for sure. Everything in L.A. is prefab. I worked for the state in the social services department. Becoming a carpenter by trade was an accident. When I came out here permanently and started building my house, I met everyone connected with selling me my supplies and people started paying me to help them with their building and woodworking.”

  “Social services,” I said. “I’m in family law.”

  “Really? Oh, wow,” he said, laughing. “You’re a lawyer?”

  “Yes.”

  He laughed some more. “Figures.”

  “Figures, how?”

  “Oh, I feel embarrassed for myself. Roberta told me you’d be working in her office, and being the male chauvinist I am, I figured you were a secretary. Sorry,” he added sheepishly. “Even with Roberta being here most of her life, some of us are still not used to women lawyers, women doctors, and that.” The “and that” was pure Chicago, a regional speech habit like the “ay?” of Canadians. He put his pencil in the pocket of his plaid flannel shirt. “Good for you,” he said.

  I tend to forgive people like carpenters for having sexist notions and am impressed when a laborer knows that much about his values and conditioning. I’m easily charmed by men who seem to want to be better men.

  “I’ll make a drawing for you. It’ll take me a few days.”

  “Thanks,” I told him, following him to the door.

  I didn’t think about him again that week, except for the fleeting thought that this was a nice guy. The town, in fact, seemed dominated by nice men. I met some in the office — Roberta making introductions — or in this or that store. Those who hadn’t been introduced nodded on the street. The school crossing guards waved; the postman always had time to chat.

  That first week in Coleman it took all my energy to behave as though I weren’t deeply troubled by thoughts of Sheffie. First the sight of the sofa filled me with memories that made me cry. Next, as
I was looking at that damned wall, I remembered part of an argument we had when he colored on the wallpaper. He’d been a good kid, never before did things like that, and it was a milestone of mine — wallpaper.

  Do you know how much this wallpaper cost? How I had to scrimp to buy it?

  I didn’t mean to.

  You did mean to; you had to mean to — you did it.

  He had gotten one of his rare spankings then. I had cried as I stripped off a section of wallpaper and replaced it. I found I could afford the time and expense of the repair; I had overreacted. In those pre-child support, post-law school days, I had indulged in so few luxuries and held each one dear.

  I have an ex-husband, Mike. I have to struggle to remember how it was I accidentally married him. Those reasons wouldn’t snag me now: He was reckless, sexy, and somewhat arrogant. I was right out of college when we met. He was in his second year of college after four years in the Air Force as an enlisted man. In retrospect, he wasn’t even a particularly good date, much less husband. He had been an awful husband — inattentive, self-centered, restless. He was going to school on the G.I. Bill; I was working as a secretary in a law office, hoping to train as a paralegal. My income was not enough to support us, and Mike had to work part-time in addition to school.

  His name is Michael Alexander, and he began to step out on me, I suspect, in the first three months we were married. I didn’t know it at the time, of course. I began to suspect him of affairs, if not just carousing, before our anniversary.

  We argued constantly, didn’t like any of the same things or people, couldn’t agree on room temperature, lighting requirements, or television shows. After three or four months I began to have dinner out with my friends and he went to sporting events or played poker with his. We accomplished one amiable discussion in our marriage, about our divorce.

  One Saturday, when I was cleaning and doing laundry and he was working on a paper for school while simultaneously watching a football game, I said to him, “It just isn’t working, is it?”