Adjusted to Death Read online

Her eyes widened. “Of course I do. I can’t just let this go by, business or no business. I have to know.”

  “Thanks,” I said, feeling my stomach muscles relax.

  “Oh, wow, I should thank you! In fact I’ll give you your treatment free. You can talk to Eileen and Renee in a minute. And at four o’clock I’ve got everyone who was here Wednesday coming in for a talk—except for Tanya—Devi thought it would be too much for her. But Ted and Valerie—Wayne and Devi—and the rest of us will all be here.” She was wiggling in her chair with anticipation. If she had had a tail she would have wagged it.

  “Maggie!” came Renee’s yell.

  Maggie jumped up.

  “Have a seat in the waiting room,” she said rushing out the door. “I’ll get to you soon.”

  I returned to the waiting room, which was now empty except for the white-haired woman. The sound of George Winston’s piano had replaced Constance Demby. I sat down in the nearest Scandinavian-design chair and closed my eyes to enjoy it.

  “My name’s Ida. What’s yours?” asked a rasping voice. I opened my eyes and saw the old woman regarding me intently, her chin on top of her hands, on top of her cane.

  “Kate,” I answered cautiously.

  “So who’s gonna take the fall for the Younger job?” she asked, squinting her eyes and pulling her chin up.

  “Take the fall?” I repeated.

  “Aw, come on. You must know who looks good to the cops. Who iced Younger? That’s the question. I heard he was a dope-dealer.” She tilted her head as if requesting confirmation.

  “Who are you?” I blurted.

  “Ida Morris. I write under the name Dick Fury. You heard of him?”

  “No.”

  “I’ve published seventeen Dick Fury’s, and you never heard of him?” Her raspy voice was raised in disbelief. Should I claim illiteracy? The opening of the front door saved me from the deception. A familiar, slightly built man limped in, his steps accented by operatic groans. “Hey, Felix,” I greeted him enthusiastically. “Your back giving you some trouble?”

  He straightened up his posture when he heard me, then quickly slumped back into his previous pose. A pink blush crept up his neck and into his cheeks.

  “He another suspect?” asked Ida eagerly.

  I shook my head. Ida put her chin back onto her hands.

  Felix hobbled over to sit next to me. “I threw my back out last night. I thought I’d give your chiropractor a try.”

  “Where does it hurt?” I asked.

  “Oh, around the lower back.” He gestured vaguely. His eyes asked me to let it go at that.

  “Felix, this is Ida,” I said, pointing. “Ida writes the Dick Fury stories. Felix writes for the Philadelphia Globe.”

  The two were eyeing each other speculatively when Eileen called my name from the hallway.

  “Please walk this way,” she said, leading me back to Maggie’s office. I walked behind her, but there was no way I could duplicate her graceful relaxed stride. As we went through the door I heard Ida asking Felix about the murder. I wondered how many of Maggie’s new patients were reporters, crime writers or undercover police.

  Eileen sat looking serene behind Maggie’s desk.

  “What do you need to know?” she asked, smiling the encouraging smile of a psychotherapist.

  “Who killed Scott Younger,” I answered.

  A frown banished the serenity from her features, but not the loveliness. “I’d like to know too, for Maggie’s sake.”

  “Business doesn’t seem to be suffering.”

  “It’s not the right kind of business, though. You have to touch people in this profession. And when they’re thrill-seekers, vultures, it feels nasty to touch them.” She paused, her large brown eyes distant. “I didn’t like to touch Scott Younger either.”

  I kept quiet, hoping she would go on. She did.

  “There was a coldness about him that I couldn’t get past. Like a snake. He rarely spoke. He didn’t even move. You know how most people move a lot, even when they’re at rest?” I nodded. “Well, he didn’t.”

  “That’s spooky,” I said, and squirmed in my chair. The pinched nerve in my back protested. “Why do you think he was like that?”

  “He was probably depressed, but most of the time he struck me as just plain evil.” She shuddered. “I always had to wash my hands after touching him.”

  “Why did you guys even keep him on as a patient?”

  Her laughter was a lilt amid the gloom that her words had evoked. “If we only treated people with clean spirits we wouldn’t be in business very long.”

  “Do you think he was evil enough to die for it?” I asked.

  “No,” she said, serious once more. “I just said he felt evil to me. I own that feeling, not him. He was probably a perfectly decent human being. And even if he was evil, that’s not something you kill for. I can’t really believe someone killed him.” She raised her palms in the air. “Or imagine it was any of the people that were here Wednesday.”

  “That’s what I wanted to ask,” I said. “Is there anything about any of us that feels wrong to you, like Scott Younger felt wrong?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Everyone has their troubles. You with Craig, for instance.” My skin flushed. “Or Devi with her health. Ted afraid of getting old. Valerie obsessed with her guru. And Wayne seems painfully shy. But all good people.” Her hands went up again.

  “Did you notice anything that day? Something out of place? Someone somewhere they shouldn’t have been?” She shook her head. “Anything?” I asked again, an unintended whine creeping into my voice.

  “Nothing.”

  I sighed deeply. The movement set off the nerve alarms at both ends of my spine.

  “Where do you hurt?” asked Eileen, compassion flowing once more from her brown eyes.

  “Neck and back.”

  She came around the desk and put her hands gently on my shoulders. I hoped she wouldn’t have to wash them afterwards.

  “Thanks for trying,” she said. “We really do appreciate it.” She gave my shoulders a quick squeeze before leading me out the door.

  In a matter of minutes Eileen had laid me out on a therapeutic couch and switched on its invisible rollers. I sank into the comfort of the mechanical massage. Unfortunately, this couch was located in the mauve room where I had last seen Younger’s dead body. As the rollers moved back and forth they seemed to drone “so what?” with each stroke.

  When the timer buzzed, Eileen transferred me to the narrow padded table where Younger had lain. I lay face down as he had, to wait for Maggie, hot pads on my neck and lower back. Perhaps someone else could have taken that quiet time for spiritual contemplation. I embraced anxiety and dread. There was plenty of fuel. Flashes of Younger’s bloody body in this very room, Craig’s desertion, lonely old age, imminent early death, a life sentence for murder, and the torturous chiropractic treatment to come kindled the flames of my agitation.

  The mental din was so loud that I barely heard the softly approaching footsteps, footsteps that did not sound like Maggie’s or Eileen’s. I could see nothing through the hole in the leather where my face rested. Pain gripped my neck and back as I tensed my muscles. It redoubled as I rashly pushed off the table and leapt to a standing position. I found myself face to face with Renee.

  “You shouldn’t get up like that,” she said, and bent over to pick up the scattered hot-packs.

  “You’re probably right,” I agreed. The jolt had done my spine no favors. But had that leap saved me from a deadlier blow? I looked closely at Renee. She didn’t appear to be carrying a weapon.

  “It just screws up your back worse,” she said, shaking her pointy finger in my face.

  “Right,” I agreed once more.

  “I suppose you think I’m a total bitch,” she said.

  I shrugged my shoulders. If the muzzle fits, I thought uncharitably, wear it.

  “Well, I’d like to see you take care of Maggie sometime!” She shook her
finger at me again. “Before I took over here, she spent all her time talking instead of giving treatments. She was making zip. I turned that around. But does anyone give me credit?” She thrust her sullen face nearer to mine.

  “No,” I ventured.

  “That’s right. No way! People tell her she should get rid of me because I’m hostile. Bullshit! Without me this business would go to hell in a handbasket.”

  I nodded my understanding. I could imagine how demoralizing it would be to keep Maggie on track by playing the perpetual bad guy. The nod seemed to satisfy her.

  “So what did you want to know about Scott?” she asked. She sat down on the one and only chair in the room. I leaned awkwardly against the padded table.

  “I heard that you went out with him for a while.”

  “I guess so. If you call going to a few gallery openings and weird plays going out. That’s all we ever did together without my kids.” She crossed her arms angrily.

  “What did you do with your kids?”

  “Whatever they damn well wanted, that’s what! He would ask them what they wanted to do. Not me. Them! We even chauffeured John to this god-awful punk music concert because John thought The Bloody Spikes were really ‘rad.’ John didn’t want us sitting near him, of course. So we huddled on the sidelines until it was over, and took him home. Great date.” She twirled her finger. “And where do you think Kimberly wanted to go?” she continued.

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  “I’ll give you a clue. She’s twelve years old.”

  “The zoo?” I guessed.

  “The zoo.” A harsh laugh came from her throat. “It’s easy to see you don’t have kids. No, the mall. Shopping. Her idea of paradise is unlimited credit at The Village.

  “So we all went shopping. Me and John and Kimberly, and Scott and his creepy sidekick. Scott bought all this crap for her. Fifty-dollar Mickey Mouse sweat shirts, pink leather purse and matching Reeboks, and a five-foot plush bear, just for starters. Do you believe it?

  “I suppose I shouldn’t have let him. I didn’t let him buy anything for me. But if he was foolish enough to waste all that money on her, why not?” Her voice rose defensively.

  “Sounds right to me,” I said. I wasn’t going to judge her actions.

  “And then John got wise. He got a leather jacket, some forty-dollar sunglasses and a cassette player before I put my foot down. He wanted a dirt bike next.

  “But the funny thing was it didn’t work. Scott spent more money on those two kids in one afternoon than my ex has on child support in a year. And they still didn’t like him.

  “And then, Kimberly wanted sushi for dinner. A twelve-year-old kid and she wants sushi, no McDonald’s please. So we go to the city to this sushi place Scott says is the best. The bill was over a hundred dollars.” She shook her head.

  “Why did he try so hard with your kids?”

  “I think the kids were the main attraction. Nothing kinky though.” She shook her finger at me as though I had suggested it. “He just wanted a prefab family.

  “I know what I look like. Even if I lost weight I wouldn’t be pretty.” She shifted her sturdy body impatiently.

  “That’s not true,” I said. “You’re an attractive woman.” And she was, in her own way. Strong and vital, if a little dictatorial.

  “Maybe to a bus driver like my ex, but not to a guy like Scott Younger. I mean, his house was incredible.” Her eyes changed focus, recalling it. “And his clothes, his car, everything. He could land Miss America if he tried. No, he wanted a family. He wasn’t particular about the wife.”

  “Why did you split up with him?”

  “You think I shouldn’t have passed up the chance, don’t you?” she accused, her eyes flashing. My protestations were drowned by her tirade. “Just because I’m a poor single mom, you think I’ll never get another chance like that. Well, the guy was goddamn weird. He wasn’t happy. He barely talked. I may not be that educated but at least I can talk. No, he just sat there with that weird-ass smile, looking superior. No wonder the kids couldn’t stand him.

  “And he took that creepy guy Wayne with him wherever we went.” I flinched at the description but held my tongue. “The kids liked Wayne better than Scott, for God’s sake. The whole thing was just too weird, so I broke it off,” she finished. Her shoulders slumped.

  “How did he react to that?”

  “He was okay. I think he realized the deal wouldn’t have worked since the kids didn’t like him anyhow.”

  “He didn’t quit Maggie as a chiropractor?”

  “No. Maggie did a good job on him. And he was cool about me. No hard feelings on either side.”

  “Did he talk about his dope-dealing days?” I asked.

  “I told you, he hardly talked about anything, much less his past. I had no idea. Not that it would have made any difference. I still would have given it a shot.” She looked straight at me. “The only reason he asked me out in the first place was because he met me here, and I talked about my kids. I don’t think he saw very many other people. He didn’t hang out. Like at the gallery openings, people would come up to talk to him and he’d just shine them on. Kinda sad really.” Her tone softened.

  I nodded. Scott Younger’s life was beginning to sound as sad as his death.

  “What else did you want to know?” she asked, straightening her shoulders.

  “Do you remember anything important from the day he was killed? Maybe something you didn’t tell the police?” I asked hopefully.

  “No,” she answered, suddenly succinct.

  “Any secrets, motives, anything?” I tried.

  “No,” she said. Then she looked up. “Except for Maggie and Eileen. But that doesn’t have anything to do with murder.”

  “What about them?” I was on the scent.

  “No. You don’t need to know.”

  Renee remained adamant on this. In fact, I suspected she had only hinted at a secret in order to torture me. Didn’t she have to be a sadist to work for a chiropractor in the first place?

  In due time Maggie came in to snap, crackle and pop my spine back into shape. Painful as it was, it worked. I got off the table and moved without agony. Maggie’s business sense may have been wanting, but she was a damn good chiropractor.

  After my treatment I decided it was my turn to manipulate Maggie. My logic was as follows. If I pretended to already know her secret, Maggie would blurt out all of the juicy details in defense.

  “Renee told me about you and Eileen,” I lied.

  “Oh, neat,” she responded, looking back at me with friendly eyes. That was it. So much for trickery.

  She bounced alongside of me as I walked carefully back to the reception area.

  “Kate’s treatment is free of charge,” she said to Renee, waving her hand in my direction grandly.

  “Maggie!” began Renee and turned on her with pointed finger.

  I slipped out the door as quietly as possible.

  -Eight-

  I could feel the dark rain clouds weighing upon the roof of my Toyota as I drove home. The funereal pressure was apt, if a little late. Nature just waking up to the violent demise of one of its creatures.

  Once I had pulled into my driveway and parked, I walked over to retrieve my mail from the overstuffed box on the street. Orders, bills, charitable requests and advertisements spilled out into my reluctant hands. I’d have to get a bigger box soon.

  I was leafing through the mass of paper when an explosion of hisses and yowls burst into the air, followed by a small flash of black and a larger flash of orange, both heading underneath my parked Toyota. I recognized the orange as the bullying ginger tom who lived next door and the black as my own cat, C.C.

  By the time the moaning growl which C.C. reserved for serious distress reached my ears I was sprinting toward the car, carried by the adrenalin pumping through my body. Suddenly C.C. was not the cat who had shredded the laps of all of my pants, but the trusting little bundle of fluff that curled in my ar
ms purring, waited at my bedroom door in the morning, and had stuck her head shyly under my arm when I had brought her home for the first time.

  I crawled under the car on my belly, bumping my knees and scraping my hands on the gravel. C.C. cowered under the tom’s glare. I threw my bundle of mail toward his orange body. It hit the undercarriage of the car and scattered on the ground uselessly. He stood firm, eyeing me with silent menace. If I had had a gun I would have shot him. I picked up a handful of gravel and flung it in his direction. But, again, my cramped position caused my aim to go wild. My target merely moved a few steps back.

  I pulled myself out from under the car, thinking of water. But before I could reach my hose the ginger tom loped out from under the car nonchalantly, to disappear through the wooden slats that fenced off his owner’s property. C.C. raced up the stairs, across the porch and through her cat-door to safety. I followed her, shaking with thwarted rage. I spent the next half hour stroking C.C. back to purring and clawing normalcy.

  I was on my belly beneath the Toyota again, painfully gathering my mail, when Felix drove up. He was full of questions but scant on information, until he got to Valerie Davis. By that time, he had made and poured us both tea.

  “I found out what she went to prison for,” he said. He paused and sipped his tea with a great show of unconcern. I resisted the urge to grab his slight shoulders and shake the information out of him.

  “Really,” I said, matching his tone of indifference. “Are you planning on sharing the details with me?”

  “It would serve you right if I didn’t, the way you sicced that crazy old woman on me.” He bent forward, glaring at me. It took me a moment to realize he meant Ida Morris, a.k.a. Dick Fury. I strangled the laugh that was gurgling up in my throat when I realized he was actually annoyed. I changed strategies.

  “She’d make a great story, wouldn’t she?” I said.

  “Maybe.” His eyes moved upward as he considered. Then he smiled. “Okay, you win. Valerie got sent up on an armed robbery charge.”

  “Armed robbery?” It didn’t square with the woman I had seen in Maggie’s office.

  “In 1970. She and two other women. It was a political robbery, according to them. They were all militants. Valerie was an honors student in her second year of college, when she got radicalized, and pregnant, at the same time. She and the other two women decided to put their political beliefs into action by subsidizing a group of poor single mothers with a large involuntary contribution from the Bank of America. The cops caught up with them within a few hours of the robbery. Valerie gave birth to her child. Hope, while she was in custody, awaiting trial. The trial was a political circus. The only defense the three women offered was the failure of the American system to deal with the oppressed.”