'Nope,' I said.
'You checked yourself in to this motel with your own credit card. You videoed yourself tied to the chair, you even copied a theater poster when you did it, though you may not know it.'
Jocelyn took one step back and sat hard on the edge of the bed.
Hawk came out of the bathroom with a handful of Kleenex. He handed them to Jocelyn. She took them without paying any attention and held them crumpled in her hand.
'Tell me about it,' I said.
'What's the use,' she said, with the tears rolling down her face.
'You don't believe me, anyway.'
'You were the one stalking Christopholous, weren't you?' I said.
She buried her face in her hands and cried louder. Now in addition to tears, there was boo-hoo.
'You had a crush on him, and he didn't respond, and so you began to follow him around.'
She turned and lay on the bed and buried her face in the pillow and sobbed.
'We got time, Jocelyn. We got nowhere to go. When you're through crying, you can tell me.'
She cried louder and buried her head deeper into the pillow. I waited. Hawk was leaning on the wall watching Jocelyn, the way you'd watch an interesting but not very affecting movie. Vinnie had his arms folded, leaning against the door, looking out the window across the room. His earphones were back over his ears.
He was listening to music. Jocelyn's fists were tightly clenched, the unused Kleenex still held in her right fist. She began to pound on the mattress as she cried. Then she kicked her feet. The crying began to wear down after a time. The pounding stopped and the kicking became desultory. She began to moan, 'Oh God, oh God' and twist on the bed as if she were in pain. And finally that stopped and she lay still, her face still in the pillow, as her breathing began to normalize. She needed more air so she took her head out of the pillow and turned it away from us, toward the window. The room was quiet.
'So how come you kidnapped yourself?' I said.
I could see Jocelyn thinking about my question and thinking about her answer, and I could see her body go almost limp in a kind of physiological surrender.
'You wouldn't believe me,' Jocelyn said. Her voice was shaky.
'I had to convince you that I needed help.'
'Help with what?' I said.
'Oh, God,' she said.
'We all need help with him,' I said.
'What else.'
'It's what…' she paused and struggled with her breath.
'… it's what every woman needs.'
'The love of a good man,' I said. I was falling into her speech patterns.
'Yes,' she said. The final sibilant came out in a long hiss.
'You were everything I ever wanted, but you had her!'
The way she said her sounded like she might have been speaking of Vlad the Impaler.
'Susan,' I said.
'Yes. Susan. Susan, Susan, Susan. There's always a goddamned Susan.'
'What a drag,' I said.
'DeSpain have a Susan?'
Her whole body stiffened. She turned her head toward me and rolled over on her side and looked at me as if I had spoken in tongues.
'DeSpain?'
'Yeah. Didn't you and he have a fling in Framingham? About ten years ago? You were with the Metro West Theater Group.
Somebody was stalking you. He was the investigating officer.'
Jocelyn sat up on the edge of the tangled bed. Her eyes were red and puffy, her face was lined with the fabric of the bedspread. She patted at her hair, trying to get her appearance back into line.
'I can barely recall the incident,' she said.
'Even though the same DeSpain is now Chief of Police in Port City, where you are working and living when not tying yourself up in hotel rooms?'
'It's something I've put behind me. It was a long time ago and it was very distasteful.'
'He was married, wasn't he?'
'Yes. To a hideous travesty of womanhood.'
