BECKY WAS SITTINGon a bench in a hallway, head in hands. She was dressed in street clothes. Ivy Vines was sitting next to her, talking in a low voice. When Becky looked up at us, I saw her eyes were red-rimmed. I introduced Frank, and we moved to a set of chairs where we could all sit down together.
“They’re getting her set up in intensive care,” Becky said. “I decided to wait out here with Ivy.” She looked at me more closely. “What happened to your arm?”
“Cat. It’s fine. Tell me about Roberta.”
“She was attacked in her office at the shelter. I don’t know any details-I just saw the aftermath. The cops were here, tried to talk to her, but she never came around for long. Maybe I just asked you to be here for my own sake, but I also thought it would be good for her…familiar people around her, you know.”
“I’m glad you called me,” I said.
“Do you know the name of the detective who has the case?” Frank asked.
Becky searched through her pockets and handed him a business card with an LPPD detective’s shield embossed on it.
He glanced at the card and handed it back to her. He excused himself and went off to a pay phone.
“She had your numbers-yours and Ivy’s on a slip of paper in her shirt pocket,” Becky said. “I called Ivy, and when I got another minute free, I called your home number. Ivy called your pager, too, but I guess you didn’t have it with you.”
“It went off at the same time the phone rang,” I said. “Once I talked to you, I forgot all about the pager.”
“Oh, God, I’ve got to call Lisa!” Ivy said, looking at her watch. “I guess she’d still be at Jerry’s house. Lisa, Roberta, and I were going to try to catch a movie tonight. Lisa won’t know what to think when I’m not home.” She headed for the pay phones as well.
“Tell me about Roberta’s injuries,” I said to Becky.
“It looks like she took one strong blow to the back of her head and suffered some minor injuries from a fall-as if someone hit her from behind and she struck some furniture or some object as she fell forward. But her head injury-it’s severe.”
Frank came back and said, “I’ve talked to the detective who’s handling the case. They don’t know much at this stage, but apparently she walked in on an intruder. Matsuda-the detective I talked to-suspects the intruder was looking for money. Desk drawers were open, file cabinet was jimmied. Went through the secretary’s office, too. Could be one of Roberta’s clients, or someone from the shelter, since they seemed to know her schedule. That part of the shelter is pretty empty by late afternoon. The secretary was gone. The people at the shelter are pretty upset about it. Matsuda thinks Roberta came back early from a meeting, walked in on the burglar.”
“No idea who it was, I suppose?” Becky said.
“Not really. But they’ve had some luck-turns out the offices were vacuumed while Roberta was out. Matsuda said that helped them to figure out there was one intruder. All kinds of people had stepped in Roberta’s office- paramedics, people from the shelter. But in the secretary’s office, there were only the intruder’s footprints. They found some of the same prints in the places in Roberta’s office where not so many other people had been walking. He’s small, and he left some kind of pulp or seeds-something from some kind of plant in his footprints. The evidence technician thought it was something that had been stuck on the bottom of the intruder’s shoes. The lab guys will work on it.”
Ivy came back. “Lisa’s really upset,” she said. “She wanted to come down here, but I think I’ve convinced her to stay home. I told her we would call her if anything changed.”
“Andre’s in this hospital, isn’t he?” I asked.
“Yes,” Becky said. “Over in the CCU-Coronary Care Unit.”
There was an uneasy silence, then Frank said, “Tell me about this group you’re in. This SOS.”
I let Becky and Ivy give him the explanations. They talked about the shelter, the fund-raisers, the amount of support the group provided.
“I understand all of that,” he said. “About the women’s shelter, and so on. Irene has told me that much. But what about Selman himself? How did he manage to inspire all of you to get together?” He studiously avoided eye contact with me when he asked this.
So it’s been bothering you after all, I thought.
“Old history,” Becky was saying.
“Okay, so it’s old history,” he persisted. “Fill me in.”
Again I let the other women do the talking. Frank would look my way every now and then, but I could see that he was beginning to understand something about Andre’s patterns, about the humiliation each of us had felt. “You have to remember,” Becky said, “none of us had reputations as doormats.”
Frank smiled. “I don’t imagine you did.”
“At first,” Ivy said, “a relationship with Andre was mad love. He was head over heels for you. He was passionate and generous. It was impressive, especially to a twenty-year-old-maybe women that age are more sophisticated now. I don’t know. In any case, he chose younger women. You didn’t have to be naive, except perhaps in one area-you had to be a romantic at heart.”
“As if that leaves a lot of women out of the running,” Becky said. “Besides, let’s face it, we were all students, he was a
“Yes,” Ivy said, then went on in the tones of a radio ad. “Young woman of today,
“Exactly!” Becky said. “And Andre would want you all to himself during that time. What you wouldn’t realize was that he was isolating you from your friends and family. You lost touch with anyone who would have been able to help you keep your balance.”
Frank looked over at me.
“My father hated him,” I said. “We all but stopped speaking to one another when I was dating Andre.”
“It was the same with everyone. Stage two, he started the criticism bit,” Ivy said. “Small things at first. How you made the toast that morning? A little too dark. The brand of spaghetti sauce you bought? Not really his favorite. What you chose to wear to a party? He hoped you’d never wear it again.”
There were nods of agreement from Becky and me.
“I take it the criticisms increased?” Frank asked.
“Until that’s all you were hearing,” Becky said.
“Not all,” Ivy said. “You’d have about six bad days with him, and one really incredibly good one. Then you’d have eight bad days, and one really incredibly good one.”
“Right,” Becky said, “but the bad days would be getting worse. Now it wasn’t the way you wore your hair, but what went on in your head. Your opinions were groundless, just about every decision you made was a poor one. He had this saying-”
She looked at Ivy and me, and together we chorused, “Surely you don’t mean…”
Frank laughed. “That bad, huh?”
“And worse. You liked the way an actor performed a part? ‘Surely you don’t mean you admire that mugging imbecile who ruined the second act?’ he’d say.”
“You’d like to see some of your old friends?” Ivy said. “‘Surely you don’t mean those people who made that awful gaffe at the Beesoms’ party? Surely not the ones who’d never read Nietzsche?’”
“By the time Andre broke up with you, at best you doubted your ability to choose men, and at worst you were severely depressed,” Becky said. “He does the same thing every time.”
Becky went on to tell him of Andre’s breaking-up ritual, which made Frank wince, and repeated the fishing pole story, which made him grin.
“Andre never varied from that breaking-up pattern,” Becky said.
Ivy and I exchanged a glance. “Yes, he did,” I said. “With Nadine Preston.”
“August of 1977,” Ivy said.
Frank caught my look of surprise, but Becky spoke up before he could say anything.
“Wait!” she protested. “I don’t know about this!”
Ivy gave a brief account of Andre’s one known deviation from his script.
“How do you know it was August of 1977?” I asked.
