I started thinking of Debra Singer and her father. In my mind’s eye I could see them, a fortyish-year-old man pushing himself onto a little girl, and then we became them, myself Craig Singer and Mary the skeleton-thin Debra. A wave of nausea rolled over me. I pushed myself up, breaking free of her hold, and then fell back to the floor, vomiting. I heard her cry out, asking what was wrong. I couldn’t answer. I kept heaving, again and again, long after there was anything left inside me. Through it all I begged her to forgive me, begged her and the baby Jesus and God to somehow let me live with my suffering. Her thin arms were around me, holding me tight, squeezing me. It was so damn crazy. I could feel her body sobbing against mine. After a while I heard her promising that everything would be alright.
It seemed like an eternity before I could breathe again. I staggered to my feet, breaking free of Mary, and steadied myself against my desk. My whole body was drenched in sweat. My clothes were soaked. I murmured something about being right back and made my way out of the office and down the hallway to the bathroom.
I groaned as I looked in the mirror. I looked like hell. My eyes were blood red, my face white and shiny wet with perspiration and tears. I turned the cold water on and put my head under the faucet. It helped a little. I tried rinsing out my mouth to get rid of the salty vile taste. All it did was dull the taste a bit. The room had been rocking back and forth and now started to spin. I dropped onto the toilet and lowered my head to my knees and waited until the spinning stopped.
When I returned back to the office Mary was on her knees scrubbing the linoleum with some paper towels. Her face was flushed, worn out. She saw me and got back up and sat down at the desk. She gave me a worried smile. I went straight to my chair and fell into it. A bottle of rye was mercifully waiting for me. I opened the bottom drawer of my desk and took out the rye and gulped down about a third of a pint.
When I put the bottle down I saw Mary watching me. “I never had that kind of reaction with a guy before,” she said, trying to keep her smile intact.
I needed another drink bad. When I lifted the bottle my hand was shaking worse than the time with Craig Singer. Some of the booze spilled on my shirt as I swallowed a few more shots. I took one last mouthful and spat it into the wastebasket, gagging. I still had that taste in my mouth. I felt it all the way down my throat.
“I’m sorry, Mary,” I said when I could. “I don’t know what happened. I’m really sorry.”
“So you don’t do that with all the girls?”
I shook my head, trying to clear it. “No, I’d say that’s a first. I guess I started thinking about my last case- about that girl’s poppa sexually abusing her. I guess it just really hit me hard.”
“Hard isn’t the word.”
“I guess it isn’t.” I started to laugh but my stomach ached too much. I took out a handkerchief and wiped it along my forehead and then wrung it out into the wastebasket.
Mary was studying me. “You had me scared,” she said. She sounded scared.
“I’m really sorry.” I rubbed the handkerchief along the back of my neck and then over my face. I wanted nothing more than to change out of my clothes and crawl into bed and hide. “I must’ve started thinking about our age difference and how it was sort of the same with that girl and her father.”
“It’s nothing at all like that. First of all I was a willing participant, at least sort of.”
When she said “sort of” it made me cringe. It brought a sickish feeling back to my stomach. She seemed to sense it, and struggled to show me her smile again.
“I’m not sure what happened,” she said.
“Why don’t we discuss it when I get back from Oklahoma? I’m going to have a hard day tomorrow searching for your birth parents.”
She nodded. “We’ll wait ‘til then.” She stood up and frowned as she looked at me. “Are you okay? You look really sick.”
“I’ll be fine. I just need some rest.”
“You’ll call me as soon as you find something?”
I nodded.
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
I watched as she left and then sat back and wondered why I’d had that reaction. Why had I got sicker than any dog? I couldn’t figure it out.
Chapter 5
First thing next morning I spoke with Jimmy Tobbler. He was disappointed to hear that his job was cut short. We argued back and forth about whether he should be paid for the previous day. Even though I’d called early in the morning he didn’t get the message until after he’d put in a hard day’s work interviewing the girls at Tiny’s peep show. He also didn’t want to have to eat the expense money he laid out that day in tips. We worked out a compromise; I’d pay him for the day, but the tips would come out of his own pocket. He agreed to send back what was left of the retainer.
Arthur Minnefield wasn’t listed with information. I made a call to the Oklahoma Bar, found out that Minnefield had died fifteen years earlier and was given the number of his widow. When I explained to her who I was and what I wanted, she told me she still had all her husband’s files and agreed to let me look through them.
I took a nine-thirty train to Oklahoma City. It was an eight-hour ride, during which I tried to think things over. I decided nothing made any sense. That’s pretty much the only way to explain what had happened with Craig Singer and later with Mary.
I guess with Singer I must’ve cracked. Even though I’ve made a success of myself there’s still a lot of crap I got to take. Anyone in my situation has to. All the winks and nods. Shoveling up your client’s messes. Making sure to look the other way when it’s in their interest. It’s all part of the job and it builds up inside you. When a piece of scum like Singer comes around, you just let it out.
And once the genie is out of the bottle . . . .
It had to be something like that. Because what happened with Mary made no sense whatsoever. I’d been with quite a few gals in my life-as my faithful readers can attest to-and while it hadn’t always gone smoothly, it never ended up before with me on my knees retching my guts out.
It just made no sense.
* * * * *
The train didn’t pull into Oklahoma City until six, and by the time I rented a car and checked into a hotel it was past seven. I called Arthur Minnefield’s widow and told her I’d be over in the morning.
Irene Minnefield had to be close to eighty, a shriveled gray-haired little thing peering up at me through thick glasses. We were sitting in her living room and she was holding a plate of oatmeal cookies with both her hands. She pushed the plate towards me.
“I got up early to bake them,” she told me, letting me in on her little secret. To oblige her I took one and chewed on it. It tasted a bit like sawdust.
“You’re the first person who’s needed to see Mr. Minnefield’s files,” she said, disappointed, no doubt, that she hadn’t had more opportunities to bake oatmeal cookies in all these years.
I showed her Mary’s picture. I told her how her husband had arranged for Mary’s adoption and how I was hoping his files would list her birth parents. She put down the plate of cookies and grasped the photo with both hands.
“My, what a pretty girl,” she remarked. “Mr. Minnefield and I never had children.” There was a note of regret in her voice.
“Could you show me where his files are?”
I took Mary’s picture from her and helped her out of her chair. She led me toward the basement. “My nephew put them down there for me,” she said at the top of the stairs.
I turned the light on and went down alone. The basement was unfinished, with a dirt floor. Water and heating pipes hung down low, so I had to crouch. No one had bothered to clean the place in years. It was filthy. About a third of the floor was stacked with boxes. None of them were marked and it didn’t take me long to realize there was no order as to how things were stored in them. I’d have to go through each box, checking each individual paper in
