Healing Sands (6 page)

“Are you and your brother still close?” I asked when he emerged. “Kind of.” He went back to juggling the ball off of his knee. Apparently that was his latest very-cool skill. I showed the proper appreciation.

“Jake hangs out with his own friends mostly,” he said. “But me and him play soccer, like, every day. Or we did.”

“Until when?” I said.

“Until yesterday.”

The ball got loose again, and this time I stopped it with my foot.

“Good trap, Mom,” he said.

“Alex.”

He looked at me, brown eyes round.

“I don't think your brother ran over that boy, and I'm going to prove it. Will you help me if you can?”

His gaze dropped to the ball, and he pried it away from me with his toe. It wasn't the reaction I expected.

“Are you and Dad gonna fight about it if I do?”

I expected that even less. “No! Why would we fight about that?”

He put the ball in motion again. “You guys fight about everything— and then I don't know whose side I'm supposed to be on.”

I couldn't even go there, not with a screaming fit starting in my head. I was going to have to save that one for Dan. Meanwhile, my ten-year-old continued to dribble a ball in a circle that probably matched what was going on in
his
head.

“Let me give it a try,” I said.

He pushed the ball to me with the inside of his foot, and I trapped it again with mine, since that had impressed him the first time. I had less success with dribbling. Two kicks, and the thing was in the koi pond. Alex retrieved it, snickering happily.

“You got a long way to go, Mom,” he said.

“Alexander—don't you want a snack?”

We both looked up at the figure standing in the back door with the tray of goodies nobody seemed to want.

“I'm good,” Alex called to her.

When Ginger disappeared, I said, “Does she live here now?”

“No. But she's gonna homeschool Jake since they won't let him back in the school. That's why she's here.”

I detected an edge in his voice, and I went for it.

“So—she calls you Alexander?”

“She puts a
y
on the end of everybody's name. Danny. Jakey. It doesn't work with mine.”

“You can't exactly say Alex-y.”

“Yeah, but it's like she has to do
something
with it, so she calls me Alexander. She's just weird.”

Well. His loyalties to me and to his father might be divided. But there was no place in there for Ginger.

At least there was that.

CHAPTER FIVE

D
r. Sullivan Crisp pulled his feet off the desk when he heard Martha Fitzgerald coming down the hall, and stuck them back into his Top-Siders. There was going to be enough eyebrow raising during this conversation as it was. Why give her a reason to shoot them all the way up into her hairline when she saw his Road Runner socks?

“Come on in, Martha,” he said before she could tap oh-so-primly on the door. That always made him want to do something un-prim in return.

“Are you sure this is a good time?” she said, even as she headed straight for one of the red-padded client chairs in front of the desk, leather portfolio in hand.

“A good time, but not a good place,” Sully said. “It's too nice out to be stuck in here.” He wiggled his own eyebrows at the French doors opening onto the patio. “Step into my outer office.”

Martha smiled a tight, automatic smile. Sully had figured out within two weeks that Martha seldom frowned, but she had a broad selection of smiles, some of which made great substitutes for a scowl. She nodded her head of smooth, bottled-but-attractive blonde hair as she followed his extended arm through the door he opened for her.

She positioned her self-consciously middle-aged self in one of the Equipale leather-and-wood bucket chairs at the table, ducking to miss the long bunch of chiles Sully had hung there. Those things were all over Las Cruces right now, and he loved them. If Martha didn't, she was careful not to show it.

“Can I get you anything to drink?” Sully said.

“I'm fine. We have a lot to cover—”

“Do you mind if I suck down a Frappuccino while we talk?”

Sully could tell she was forcing her eyebrows to remain in check. He pulled a cold Starbucks bottle out of the small fridge and sighed into the chair facing her. “Thanks for humoring me,” he said.

“It's no problem, Dr. Crisp.”

“When are you going to start calling me Sully?”

“Sully,” she said.

He knew she'd be back to “Doctor” five minutes from now, even though she, too, had a doctorate in psychology and fifteen years more experience than he had. His being the founder of the Healing Choice Clinics seemed to make it impossible for her to lighten up.

“What's first on the agenda?” he asked.

She flipped open the leather portfolio. “The Hillman issue,” she said.

“Bring me up to speed.”

“I reported suspected child abuse when I was working with the Hillman girl, but CPS found no evidence.”

“Oh, right, so Mr. Hillman has threatened to sue us.”

Martha nodded stiffly.

“You still maintain there was abuse?”

“Yes, I do. I saw evidence of—”

Sully put up a hand. “No need to explain. You wouldn't have gone that far without good reason. Has Mr. Hillman's attorney contacted you yet?”

“No.”

“Then let's just file that one away. If and when the time comes, the ministry will back you up.” He fished a small voice recorder out of his pocket and said into it, “Put Hillman on the back burner and hope he doesn't scorch his buns.” He grinned at Martha. “What else you got?”

“Bob Benitez,” she said.

“Ah—Bobby the Blogger.”

Martha twitched an eyebrow. “A lot of people think everything they read on the Internet is gospel.”

Sully crossed one long leg over his other knee and propped the bottle on it. “What's his beef again exactly?”

“His niece came in for counseling—she was one of Carla's clients— and he says her ethnic background was not taken into consideration in her counseling.”

“Was it family therapy?”

Martha consulted her notes and shook her head.

“So how did he know whether her counseling was ethnically appropriate or not?”

“I couldn't tell you.”

“Do we care about what ol' Bobby is blowing smoke about in his blob?”

“Blog,” Martha said—and then gave him a quick look.

He grinned at her again, and both her cheeks went pink to match her perfectly professional blouse. He'd caught her giving his Hawaiian shirts and chinos the eyebrow more than once since he'd arrived to get the clinic back on its feet.

“Bob Benitez and his wife are influential in the social justice circle here in Las Cruces,” she said.

“So—what is it he wants?”

“From what I can tell, he just wants a case he can use to prove that the mental health care of Hispanics is inadequate for their special needs.”

Sully refolded his legs and took another swig. Martha waited.

“Well,” he said. “We could post a comment on his blog, explaining that at Healing Choice we show our clients that God loves them and can lead them to healing whether they are white, black, brown, or blue. Or we can refuse to dignify it with a response, and he'll find somebody else to pick on. What say you?”

She cleared her throat. “I suppose we should go for the latter.”

“I like the way you think. Ignore Bobby,” he said into the recorder, then turned to Martha. “Anything else?”

Martha glanced needlessly at her list again. “Carla Korman.”

“I'm still not sure I understand what gives with that. I've read the file, but it doesn't fit together somehow. You want to try to unmuddle it for me?”

“I don't even know if I understand it,” she said.

“Give it your best shot.”

“She had been working here as a therapist for two years when I came on board, and as far as I could tell, her clients thought highly of her.”

“Except for Bobby Benitez's neice.”

“But he never filed a complaint. There were none until that flurry about two months ago. All of a sudden, four different people came out of nowhere saying she gave them counsel that led to this or that disaster. All of them complained to the Healing Choice head office— they're the ones who removed her.”

“That happened while I was out of the loop,” Sully said. “Rusty Huff was handling things then—and I don't think he would have let her go without the juice to back it up.” He tilted his head at Martha. “What's your take on it?”

“She was completely devastated, and I can't say I blame her. It just seemed to happen so suddenly.”

Sully nodded and muttered, “Talk to Rusty about Carla Korman,” into the recorder. “So what's the situation at this point?”

“The PCMFT board is trying to decide whether to completely revoke her license. They want us to fill out some paperwork. You're familiar with them, of course.”

Sully nodded. He knew the Professional Counselors and Marriage and Family Therapists all too well. Part of his reason for being in Las Cruces, besides getting this particular clinic off of its ear, was to investigate the possibility of getting someone else's license revoked by that same board. Until he'd found out she didn't have one. He drained the Frap bottle. Just thinking about it made him want to bite the top off of it.

Martha was still giving him the curious version of her smile. “How would you like for me to proceed, Dr. Crisp?”

“Why don't you follow up on the complainants if you will, see if you can get to the bottom of this. If Carla was struggling with something herself, I'd rather see her get help than the boot.”

“I'll get on it.”

“Have Olivia help you. You already have a double client load until we can hire someone to replace Carla.”

“That's okay. Olivia is . . . I can handle it.”

Sully felt a grin spread across his face. “Issues with our Olivia?” Martha glanced at the open French door. Sully nudged it closed with his foot.

“Dish,” he said.

“I don't mind the chitchat and the burned popcorn in the microwave,” Martha said.

She did, of course, but Sully just nodded her on.

“But I caught her in a lie, and I don't think we can have that.”

“Seriously.”

“I waited a half hour for a client yesterday, and when I went out to check with her to see if he'd called to cancel, she swore he hadn't. I called him later, all concerned about him, and he said he'd notified Olivia two days ago. I confronted her, of course, and she melted like a pat of butter.”

“Tears?”

“Beyond. She said she was afraid to tell me she'd messed up.” Martha blinked at him. “I just don't understand that.”

Sully bit back the explanation that Martha could be as intimidating as a boa constrictor and tapped his recorder. “You want me to say something to her?”

“No. I've got it handled. This is just FYI.”

“And not a moment too soon.” Sully nodded at the French door where Olivia herself was approaching, hand already poised to tap on the glass. He stifled a grin when Olivia looked Martha's way and turned a little green.

“Come on out,” Sully said as she pushed the door open only far enough to speak through. “We were just talking about you.”

Olivia's eyes, which bore a strong resemblance to Bambi's, widened as if she were staring into the proverbial headlights. Her face, already a powdery shade, went paler, leaving every fine freckle on her nose in bas relief. Sully could have predicted that both hands would go up to her brown straggle of hair and shove it behind her ears. Then they clutched at the long string of beads she wore with what Sully thought they called a peasant blouse. The lace on it had the same chewed-on-by-a-goat look as the ends of her hair.

“Am I in trouble?” she said. “I am, aren't I?”

“Nah,” Sully said. “You're just on a learning curve.”

“Oh,” she said. “Okay—well—you said to tell you when it was almost time for your appointment—you know, with that guy who's applying for the job. And it is. Almost time.”

“Good, then,” Sully said. “Just show him back when he gets here.”

She skittered out without a glance at Martha, who closed her portfolio and stood up.

“What I want to know,” Sully said, “is who hired
her
?”

“Carla,” she said. “She was a rescuer.”

And Martha, clearly, was not.

When Martha was gone, Sully went into his office, propped his feet on the desk again, and pulled out his cell phone. There was just enough time for a quick check-in with Porphyria before she left for Nashville.

The connection to the Smokies was faint at best, but Porphyria's voice was still as rich as molasses when she answered. He closed his eyes; he knew she'd have hers closed too. She did that with him, as if, as his mentor, she was shutting out everything else to give him all the space.

“Don't you ever work, Dr. Crisp?” she said.

“I'm working right now. I'm calling for advice.”

“You're calling to check up on me, and I'm fine. I told you this is just my annual physical.”

Sully chuckled. “Nothing gets by you.”

“I didn't get to be eighty-one years old by being a fool.”

“Winnie's driving you down to Nashville?”

“You know she is.” Porphyria paused. “Sully?”

“Yeah?”

“I am fine. You worry like an old woman.”

Sully let out a guffaw. “Just have your niece call me when you get down there.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“And when you get done with the exam.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“And when you get back home.”

“You don't have anything else to do out there in New Mexico?” Sully imagined the dark face smoothed out like the countenance of an African queen.