Deja Dead Page 0,105

late Friday morning. In deference to me, they called ahead, arrived without fanfare, and worked quickly and efficiently. They accepted Gabby’s presence as a natural development. The comfort of a friend after a night of fright. I told Gabby there had been an intruder in the garden, leaving out mention of the head. She had enough on her mind. The team left with encouraging words. “Don’t worry, Dr. Brennan. We’ll get the bastard. You hang in there.”

Gabby’s situation was as harrowing as mine. Her former informant had become her stalker. He was everywhere. Sometimes she’d see him on a bench in the park. Other times he’d follow her on the street. At night he’d hang around St. Laurent. Though she now refused to talk to him, he was always there. He kept his distance, but his eyes never left her. Twice she thought he’d been in her apartment.

I said, “Gabby, are you sure?” I meant, Gabby are you losing it?

“Did he take anything?”

“No. At least, I don’t think so. Nothing I’ve noticed. But I know he went through my things. You know how you can tell. Nothing was gone, but things were a bit off. Just sort of rotated in place.”

“Why didn’t you return my calls?”

“I stopped answering the phone. It rang a dozen times a day and no one would be on the other end. Same with the answering machine. Lots of hang-ups. I just stopped using it.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“And say what? I’m being stalked? I’ve made myself a victim? I can’t handle my own life? I thought if I treated him like the maggot he is he’d lose interest. Slither away and pupate somewhere else.”

Her eyes looked tortured.

“And I knew what you’d say. You’re losing it, Gabby. You’re letting your paranoia control you, Gabby. You need help, Gabby.”

I felt a stab of guilt, remembering the way I’d hung up with her last. She was right.

“You could have called the police. They’d give you protection.” Even as I said it I didn’t believe it.

“Right.” And then she told me about Thursday night.

“I got home about 3:30 A.M. and I could tell someone had entered the apartment. I’d used the old trick of stretching a thread across the lock. Well, seeing it gone totally unnerved me. I had been in a pretty good mood since I hadn’t seen the creep all night. Also, I’d just had the locks changed, so I was feeling secure about the apartment for the first time in months. Seeing that thread on the floor just destroyed me. I couldn’t believe he’d gotten in again. I didn’t know if he was still inside and I didn’t want to find out. I bolted and came here.”

Bit by bit she talked of the past three weeks, recounting incidents as they came into her head. As her narrative unfolded over the weekend, my mind rearranged the disjointed episodes into a chronology. Though the man harassing her had done nothing overtly aggressive, I saw a pattern of increasing boldness. By Sunday I began to share her fear.

We decided she would stay with me for the time being, though I wasn’t so sure what score my place would earn in a safety check. Late Friday Ryan had called to tell me the patrol unit would be there through Monday. I’d nod to them as we set out on our walks. Gabby thought they were a response to the garden intruder. I didn’t suggest otherwise. I needed to bolster her newborn sense of safety, not wreck it.

I suggested we contact the police about her stalker, but she adamantly refused, fearing their involvement would compromise her girls. I also suspected she was afraid of losing their trust and her access to them. Reluctantly, I agreed.

On Monday I left her and went to work. She planned to gather some things from her apartment. She’d agreed to stay off the Main for a while, and meant to spend time writing. For that she needed her laptop and files.

When I got to my office it was past nine. Ryan had already phoned. The scrawled message read: “Got a name. AR.” He was out when I returned his call, so I went to the histo lab to check on my garden memento.

It was drying on the counter, cleaned and marked, the absence of soft tissue having made boiling unnecessary. It looked like a thousand other skulls, with its empty orbits and neatly penned LML number. I stared at it, recalling the terror it had triggered