Fear/dread/alarm. Trapped in a crowded elevator. Panic. The impulse to be as far away as possible--stronger than an urge, a compulsion. The feeling of bursting but wanting to hide. The necessity to be invisible.
"Can I get you a glass of water, Ms. Carter?" This client's distress slammed into Angela Simmons with the force of a tidal wave as the distraught woman entered the office, her face contorted, her hands fluttering.
"Yes, please." She gasped for air.
Angela walked around her desk to the inverted water bottle in the cooler and filled a paper cup that she handed to Ms. Carter. Sobbing, the older woman collapsed onto the couch facing the desk
A man in a blue business suit in the outside patio of a restaurant, looking at photographs ranged in front of him on the table. Flashes of hatred. He stands, spreads his hands as if in supplication. A knife flashes. Blood. He gasps for breath, clutches at his heart, slumps over and falls to the flagstones. A spasm ripples his body and he is still. Bewilderment, confusion, perplexity, incomprehension. In slow motion a tall dark-haired waiter approaches, alarm covering his face.
Angela knew that one of the hazards of her ability to envision other people's thoughts and feel their emotions was that when they were very strong, as Ms. Carter's were, they could sometimes almost overwhelm her unless she used the greatest caution. But, she thought, what is this? A fantasy? A plan? A memory? Some mixture of all three? I'll have to wait patiently, listen and see.
"You called half an hour ago for an urgent appointment and said you were in trouble so I cleared the afternoon. What can I do for you?"
"I ... I killed him," Ms. Carter stammered between sobs.
Angela pushed a box of tissues across her desk toward the bawling woman.
"Tell me what happened."
Ms. Carter wiped her eyes and face with a tissue and blew her nose but her voice trembled as she struggled to control it. "I said I killed him."
"Yes, I heard that. But just how did you kill him?"
"I took him to the club..." She fought to catch her breath before she was able to continue, "...as you suggested. I booked a table on the patio for the time between lunch and drinks so it would be empty." She took a deep breath and seemed to regain a measure of composure. "We ordered and then I began showing him the photographs you gave me. The ones of..." She broke down crying again and moaned, "If only I'd never seen them." She looked up at Angela, her makeup smeared across her face like some horrid mask melted in the sun.
Angela remained silent. She'd sat through these gales of tears before with this client ... and many others.
Noiseless sobs racked Ms. Carter's body as she hid her face in her hands.
"I showed them to him as you told me to do. One by one. First he and that woman are going into the room. Then they are ... Oh it's just too awful. He denied everything, even when I showed him the photographs. He stood up and I stood up. He said how can I believe these? He spread his arms as if begging like this." Ms. Carter stood and opened her arms palms out. She sat again, paused and continued. "I grabbed a steak knife and stabbed him. He put his hands on his heart and fell to the ground and he was dead. If I'd never shown him the photos he would never have denied it all. I'd never have gone crazy and killed him."
Angela had had her own shocks as she'd reviewed the photos when her agents first brought the prints to her. Not that this handsome, fit and well-groomed middle-aged man was fucking someone besides his wife but that Angela knew one of the women. But after doing this job since she'd left college, she thought she'd probably seen everything there was to see. She didn't think she was capable of being surprised. And yet there she was, being bowled over.
"Have you informed your lawyer or anyone in law enforcement?"
"No, I left and called you. I came here as quickly as I could. I didn't think to call the police."
"We'll have to go back. You will need to talk to the officials."
"But what will I tell them?"
"Tell them the truth. Have you called your lawyer?"
"No."
"Call him now. Is the number in your cell phone?"
Ms. Carter groped blindly in her handbag until she retrieved the oblong silver telephone and started pushing buttons.
"Tell him to meet us in the patio of the tennis club's restaurant. That's where you were?"
Ms. Carter nodded as she listened to the cell phone.
"We'd better get there before the police leave." Angela stood up, collected her handbag and walked around the desk to help Ms. Carter to her feet, her cell phone still to her ear, and guide her by the elbow out the door into the hall.
Angela steered Ms. Carter along the sidewalk past the library, past the coffee shop and to the parking garage where she kept her small hybrid gas-electric car. By the time they reached the car Ms. Carter had got her lawyer's office on the phone.
"I have to get through the secretaries before I can talk to him." Ms. Carter sounded apologetic and frustrated.
Angela opened the passenger side door for Ms. Carter, closed it behind her and went around to the driver's side.
As Angela Simmons entered the stop and go traffic of Chicago's western suburbs, Ms. Carter managed to tell her lawyer where they were going and what had happened. The lawyer's black German luxury car pulled into the parking lot just after Angela's small Japanese model. From his shining Italian shoes to the fancy haircut the lawyer looked like he'd stepped out of a gentleman's fashion magazine. Two police cruisers and an ambulance were in the parking lot.
"Hi, Angela, how are you?" Angela had met the lawyer in the course of her work. "What's the story here?"
"Hi, Claude. All I know is what Ms. Carter told me. And you."
He took Ms. Carter's left elbow and Angela took her right and they guided her through the tennis club and into the patio where the police were taking photographs, measurements and notes inside the yellow crime scene tape that marked off the area. The coroner was just standing up as the trio arrived.
"Is this the lady in question?" A handsome, aquiline-featured, dark-skinned man in plain clothes was quizzing the waiter.
"Yes."
That waiter is as queer as a blue fox. The thought flashed across Angela's mind.
"Where have you been?" The policeman addressed Ms. Carter. "I'm Lieutenant Chandra, officer in charge of this case."
"She lost her head, officer," the lawyer answered. "I'm representing Ms. Carter. Claude Ravensworth."
The two men shook hands in greeting. "You don't need a lawyer for this." The policeman sounded annoyed.
"Still, I'll be here to represent her interests."
"So what happened here, Ma'am?"
"She doesn't care to make a statement at this time. What do you have?"
"Okay, okay, have it your way. She's not a suspect anyway. The waiter tells us there was some sort of altercation between these two." The policeman indicated the body and Ms. Carter. "She stabbed him. He went down. But the coroner just told us that the knife wound wasn't the cause of death."
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