Out of the Shadow (3 page)

The burly cop leaned forward. "We’ve been looking, but so far the evidence hasn’t led us anywhere else."

"What have you been doing to find the real perpetrator, besides badgering me?"

Mills shrugged. "You’re not the only one we’re questioning. We’ve interviewed quite a few people." 

Becca stood. "Well, maybe you better do more. Keep looking, because you’re not going to find anything here. Is there anything else today? I need to go."

Mills and her partner rose. "Nothing more for now, but we’ll let you know when there is."

"I’m sure you will." Shaken, Becca watched them leave the room. Their questions made her question herself. She had been diagnosed with a mental illness and hospitalized once. Was she going down the same path again? Maybe she was crazier than she cared to admit. Was she in denial, or even delusional?

Could she have carried out something as heinous as murdering her husband, convincing herself she hadn’t done it? The violence had certainly exposed a tightly-woven web of tangled feelings within her; a web she tried desperately to hold together. even though her relationship with her parents, and the police scrutiny, kept threatening to rip it apart. One small tear at a time.

The police visit had stirred up so many emotions in Becca, she found it hard the following day to do anything except skulk around the house in sweats and slippers. It didn’t take long for Julie to take notice, and complain. To remedy the situation, Julie suggested a spirit-lifting outing to the mall. Busy emptying the dishwasher, Julie sent Becca into the master bedroom to retrieve her purse.

            The moment Becca stepped inside the room, a spasm radiated through her solar plexus, leaving in its wake an eerie, detestable sensation. She shook it off as quickly as she could, located the purse, and joined Julie downstairs, but the sense of impending doom lingered for the remainder of the day. She had trouble shutting off her mind that night, and it took longer than usual to fall asleep.

In the middle of the night, Becca awoke from a deep sleep when a shadow passed over her eyes. Before she could turn on the light, she heard muffled footsteps. With a creak, the doorknob turned. She could swear she glimpsed the silhouette of a man standing in the doorway.

Startled, she bolted upright, switched on the bedside lamp and glanced around, but everything was exactly as she had left it the night before-the door closed and the curtains drawn. The room empty. It took several inspections of the bedroom before she could return to bed. An hour passed before her heart slowed enough for her to go back to sleep.

Five days later work had been completed on deadbolts, window latches, and a new alarm system. Becca lugged the last of her suitcases from Irv's Buick into her Queen's Village apartment in a gentrified area at the edge of Center City Philadelphia. Back at the car, she reassured Irv she’d be all right and sent him on his way. She surveyed the tree-lined street with lovely older townhouses, before entering the building and traveling the few steps to her apartment.

Exhausted by the hell raised after she broke the news to Julie that she was moving out - but hadn’t she established that fact upfront - she slouched onto an overstuffed alabaster armchair against the far wall, glancing around the apartment at the familiar expanse of brass and glass. She stared across the brand new carpet at a sofa Julie had picked out to replace the one stained with David's blood. How many times had she sat in this chair across from David and discussed the possibility of starting a family? At the time his refusal to even consider the idea had upset her. But as much as she had wanted a child, she now wondered how the white-on-white living room would have fared under the onslaught of chocolate pudding and Crayolas.

A noise in the hallway outside the apartment distracted her from her ruminations, and she tensed. Only after the building door had closed with a decided swoosh did she release her breath. Minutes passed before she could calm herself, but the shivers remained.

She pried herself from the comfort of her chair, went over to the thermostat and raised the temperature ten degrees. Warm air and a stale odor gushed through vents into the room. Since she was up, there was no reason to put off unpacking any longer. In the bedroom, she splayed open a suitcase on the bed and carried a handful of folded slacks to the dresser, placing a stack on top, and another in a drawer below.

The jangle of the phone snagged her attention and she jogged into the dining room to answer it, but before she had a chance to lift the receiver, Julie’s number flashed on the display. Not quite ready to deal with her mom, Becca let the answering machine pick up the message. She’d call back later when she felt more in control.

But she couldn’t miss the words spilling out of the machine, sounding apologetic with a hint of blame. Becca could decipher the subtext. She knew how much Julie fretted about her, and how little she believed in Becca’s ability to manage her own life, especially now. That’s why she always wanted to control—

A shattering sound made Becca jump. She placed a hand over her racing heart, as if the pressure would quiet its wild rhythm, and cautiously made her way back toward the bedroom.

The overwhelming scent of perfume assaulted her senses before she spotted the broken bottle on the bedroom floor. She must have created the disaster herself when she moved bottles aside to place her pants on the dresser top. She bent over to pick up a large remnant with a label that read
Raffinée
.

Her disappointment at demolishing her favorite fragrance did little to diminish her relief the noise was nothing more than a broken bottle. She tossed the glass shards in the trash, swept up any remains, and soaked up the perfume with a towel.

Afterwards, she put the rest of her clothes away and reclaimed her seat in the living room. She tried to concentrate on a
Glamour
magazine she’d brought along, primarily for the purpose of distracting herself, but discovered she couldn’t. Still jittery, she had to escape the oppressive apartment. Breathe some fresh air.

Becca made a bee-line for the front door, stopping only long enough to shrug her way into a black fiber-filled jacket. Outside, she took a seat on the front steps. A glance at her watch told her the time, 5:30 p.m. Only two hours had passed since her dad had dropped her off, and already she was a nervous wreck.
 How could she possibly stay the night by herself?

She lowered her chin into her hands, staring down at the cement pavement, when a pair of white Nike running shoes came into view. She raised her eyes past long legs in denims, a beige vest over a navy-blue wool shirt, and into the deep chocolate-brown eyes of her next door neighbor. His chestnut-colored hair had been combed away from his face, which was creased with a warm and sincere smile.

"Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you," he said. "I’m so sorry about what happened."

"Thanks for your concern."

He pointed to the step. "Mind if I sit?"

"Of course not." She moved over to make room for him.

"What are you doing out here all by yourself? It’s awfully cold this evening."

Right
. She had been so preoccupied she had hardly noticed the plummeting temperature until now. She wrapped her arms around herself. "I moved back in today, but I’m having trouble being in my apartment alone."

"Oh, I see." His knowing look put her at ease. "Too many ghosts?"

She nodded.

"I understand."

"I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I don’t know your name."

"Evan," he said, holding out a hand to shake. "Frankin. And yours is Rebecca Rosen, am I right?"

Surprised, she studied him. His slightly receding hairline informed her he was probably in his mid-thirties, but he had the physique of a younger man. Then she remembered his passing the window on one of his morning jogs. She had made small talk with him on a handful of occasions when their mailbox schedules coincided, and she had always thought of him as kind and courteous, and attractive in a way; but her marital status prevented her from ever considering him more than just a friendly neighbor. Even though she wouldn't have thought of him as handsome in the traditional sense, there was something especially appealing about him. "How do you know—"

"Besides seeing it in all the papers, I had a visit from the police a couple days after the tragedy. They wanted to know what my relationship was with you and your husband. You know, the usual questions."

"Yeah, they’ve asked me one or two as well."

"I bet they have, Rebecca."

"Please call me Becca. Everyone else does. So what do you do with your time, Evan Frankin? I see you leave every morning and come back in the evening. You must be up to something in between."

He chuckled. "I guess you could say that. I’m a student at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine."

“What's the difference between Osteopathic Medicine and Allopathic Medicine?” she asked.

“Osteopathic Medicine focuses on the whole person, not just body parts and symptoms.”

"Interesting,” she said. “I’d sure like to hear more about it sometime."

"Tell you what. I was about to go inside and toss together a pasta dish. I’d love company. After we eat, I can join you at your apartment if you want to watch TV. Being there with a neighbor might help. What do you say?"

Becca’s first impulse was to agree to his terms, but she paused to consider. What did she know about him? She had watched him rescue a cat from a tree across the street, and knew he sponsored a kid through Big Brother, because she had spoken with the boy while he waited on the stoop one afternoon, but was that resumé enough to reassure her he was safe?

She gazed into Evan’s eyes for a long moment and his remained steady, not blinking or flinching. The way he looked at her told her he was honest and trustworthy. She needed a friend right now. She would have to rely on her instincts. "Okay," she said, shrugging. "That sure beats the mental breakdown I was planning this evening."

"Good." He stood, took her hand, and pulled her to her feet. "This way to Chef Wolfgang Suck’s kitchen."

She laughed for the first time in weeks.

Chapter Four

From the front row of the conference room, a professional-looking woman dressed in a gray cotton suit with a tailored white blouse, raised her hand.

"Yes?" I asked.

She lifted her eyeglasses from her face and used them as one would use a pointer while speaking. "Sarah, I can’t help but wonder about this neighbor of Becca’s. Obviously she knew him casually before the rape, but now he seems so interested and available. Is it possible he might have something to do with it?"

I shrugged, thinking again of Rachel and all she had gone through. While I don’t typically reveal too much information at this point in the lecture, because I could lose my audience’s interest later on, tossing them a scrap to chew on wouldn’t hurt. "I’m glad you noticed this and said something. Certainly he appears eager to help Becca out, but we don’t know yet if it’s because he’s a true knight in shining armor, or a cad in cool clothing. I don’t want to say too much just yet, but keep your eye on him as the story progresses."

Another hand went up in the back row and a wide-eyed younger woman in jeans and jacket spoke.
 "How long after the rape did you start meeting with Becca?"

"Not long after," I said, recalling the first time we met. "Once back at her apartment, Becca’s terrifying dreams didn’t end, but magnified and multiplied. It didn’t take long before she couldn’t stomach suffering in silence, and sought out the services of a psychotherapist. Not knowing where to turn, she approached Angela, who had occasionally been in to see me with relationship problems. Only a few hours later she called for an appointment.

Upon entering the waiting room for our first session, I saw a striking redhead with high cheek bones and large, incandescent green eyes. When she stood to follow me into the office, I noticed she wore a floral print dress with a flouncy skirt and high heels. While on the short side, she possessed an appealing pixy-ish quality. Later, I attributed this to her mischievous grin, and the way she wove her words with her hands.

“
She took a seat on the couch and launched into an explanation of why she had come, beginning with the rape and the murder. She described in detail what had taken place in her apartment in the early hours of that August morning, and what had followed with the hospital, the police, and her family. Although I listened intently and took extensive notes, a part of me stood back, refusing to leap to any judgments.

The psyche can be a trickster, camouflaging and twisting the truth to protect itself from what it sees as bad behavior. Even though Becca professed her innocence more than once, this hadn’t appeased the police; and it wasn’t totally persuasive to me. I never allow myself to draw conclusions about a client until I have had a chance to work with them. After getting to know them, I can begin to sort out truth from delusion.

As a psychotherapist, I’m part scientist, part archeologist, and part detective. I take the puzzles my patients present as problems, and help them put the pieces together in the right configuration to uncover the truth. While they dig deep for artifacts long buried, around which they have built elaborate and often impregnable defenses, I help them chisel away at the bedrock with my bag of tools and tricks. My job is to assist my clients in the difficult, painstaking work of uncovering the haunting and hurtful past traumas in order to diminish their power. It’s only by recognizing what happened to them, and how it has shaped their perception of reality, that they can begin to heal.

I began by asking Becca questions about her early life leading up to the rape and murder. She shared with me about Julie and Irv, and what it was like growing up an only child in an overprotective Jewish family. In colorful language she recreated her early school years, her awkward adolescence, and her blossoming interest in boys and sex. Before we wrapped up our first session, she told me about her marriage to David, which she described as a ‘marriage of convenience.’ She explained how disloyal it made her feel to say anything negative about him, now that he was gone, but she had never loved him the way a woman should love her husband. That fact did not prevent her from grieving his death, and she was only beginning to recover from it.

The hour ended with my giving her an assignment to keep a journal of both her waking and sleeping life. I asked her to keep pen and paper by her bed, and to write down her dreams immediately upon waking. During the day I told her to note any thoughts, feelings, experiences, or fantasies she sensed might be of significance—even those she didn’t take too seriously. I wanted her to pay attention to everything going on in her inner and outer life.

I could see my attentive audience mulling over my explanation. I hadn't shared with them my personal reaction to Rachel because the more I listened to her story, the more I related to her. I’ve never had this type of visceral reaction to a new client, but Rebecca’s history so closely mimicked my own, it was difficult not to feel an immediate connection to her. Something beyond the typical therapist-client bond. I had also been raised in an overprotective Jewish family, and had made poor choices about men and marriage. My most recent disaster had cycled, months earlier, through divorce court.

But what made her all the more relatable was a wounded and vulnerable quality, a quality I had often felt in myself. She seemed ripe for the advances of those who would use and abuse her. While I actively worked on this character defect in myself, it occasionally reared its ugly little head, especially in my relationships with the opposite sex, and made me want to protect and defend Becca, even while I had my doubts about her innocence.

An older man with long hair in a ponytail stood and snatched my attention. "Did you think Becca had it in her to murder her own husband? From what you described, it’s hard to believe."

I smiled. "Anything is possible. Remember Karla Faye Tucker and Susan Smith. If you had run into either of them on the street, you wouldn’t have thought they could murder anyone. But they did. As a therapist, you must be open to all possibilities and not let appearances deceive you. Any other questions? I glanced around. "Okay, if there are none, let’s continue."

After a long second day back at St. John’s, exhaustion flowed like an intravenous sedative through Becca’s veins. By the time the double doors of the convalescent hospital disgorged her into the mass of humanity scurrying home for the night, the sun had hidden behind tall buildings, its light filtering through the grime-laden air. In the murky haze, buildings faded one into another. Sights that had looked luminous earlier, now seemed as pallid as one of her elderly patients.

She caught the bus 31 that rambled down traffic-packed streets past shops and restaurants to the Broad Street line. Overjoyed to be on her way home from work, she was equally grateful to Angela for asking her to cover the extra shift. Not only did it postpone the moment when she would have to return home alone, but it had also sapped the strength she’d require to fret about it. A tinge of fear rippled through her at the thought.

To take her mind off her own troubles, she replayed Angela’s earlier plaintive plea on the phone. Angela had complained bitterly about not seeing her boyfriend for two whole days, and had intimated she wanted time off to spend with him. But all Becca could detect beneath the appeal for shift cover was the lilt of love in her friend’s husky voice. She had given Angela a bit of a hard time for fun, holding out for a few minutes before agreeing to do it. But after all Angela had done for her, helping her out was a no-brainer.

Funny, she had first learned about Angela’s new beau the day her life changed forever. How mundane the day now seemed...how routine. How could such an ordinary day have turned out to be so horrific?

She remembered the day before David’s death so clearly. Her only break had come just after noon, when she managed to maneuver away from Mrs. Bluestone in room 208. Poor Mrs. Bluestone clung to the nurses as though their presence would spare her further suffering. Becca only wished it would. The woman’s Alzheimer's disease seemed to progress daily. When Becca finally loosened the waif-like woman’s surprisingly strong grip on her arm, she made her way to the cafeteria. Angela waved to her from a table in the rear of the room. She picked out a wilted-looking salad and joined her friend.

"Can you believe this beautiful day?" Angela had asked after Becca took a seat across the table from her. "What the hell are we doing in this den of depression?"

"Yeah, and to think I almost left the bus at Independence Square," Becca mused.

"And leave me all alone here with all these fun things to do? What are friends for?" Angela chided her.

"Like you didn’t stick us last weekend to run off to the shore." Becca gave her friend a knowing glance and noted how well she looked. Angela considered herself too plump, but Becca had always admired her dark Mediterranean looks. The last couple of times they were together, Angela had looked especially attractive.
 

"I’m sure you’ve heard about the great things I came back to, like—"
 she eyed Becca— "complaints from Harriet Wilson about your nursing care."

"So I’ve joined the legions."

"What do you plan to do about her?"

Becca sent her friend a sneaky smile. "Give her an extra dessert."

"You’re too kind to that nasty witch."

Passive was more like it.
"That’s because I never say ‘no’ to anyone."

"Don’t underestimate yourself. I don’t know how I’d get along without you. Nothing would ever get done around here."

"I wish that were true elsewhere in my life." Becca took a closer look at Angela’s beaming face. Even when describing her problems at work, she never lost her luster. "You don’t look at all like your old miserable self. What are you so happy about?" 

"Promise you won’t ride me on this one?" Angela asked.

"What’s the big deal?"             

She watched Angela scope out the room. Her gaze fixed on Sylvia Haas at the next table. Angela lowered her voice. "Sylvia’s such a gossip." She pushed her thick hair out of her eyes and whispered, "I met a man. A doctor. He’s handsome, brilliant, attentive...not like most jerks I meet. What more can I tell you? He’s a hunk." Angela took a sip of coffee. "Yuk! Mississippi Mud."

Becca picked at the romaine on her plate. "Lucky you."

Angela eyed her. "Come on, Becca, you have nothing to complain about. You have a stable relationship, which is more than I can say."

"I guess that’s true, it’s just that David and I haven’t been getting along again." She spoke a little too loudly and glanced over to see Sylvia staring at her.

Angela scooped a spoonful of yogurt out of a container. "What’s the problem now?

"Same old, same old," she said in a low voice. "I brought up the idea of having a child again, but he nixed it." Becca put her fork down and wiped the corners of her mouth. "He says we have to wait to start a family until he’s more established in his law practice. But I have the sense he’d have to be as successful as F. Lee Bailey before he’d feel ready. I’m not sure what we’re waiting for."

"It will happen." Angela flapped her hand in a gesture of reassurance. "Just give it some time and, before you know it, you’ll be overrun with rug rats. Then you’ll be complaining to me about them."

Becca had chuckled. "You’re right. I do have a little teeny bit of an impatient streak."

"Then I’m sure you’re dying to go back to work."

           The honk of a car horn drew Becca's attention back to the office buildings lined up beyond her window on the Broad Street line. A pang of guilt over her feelings toward David stabbed Becca, but she shook it off.

The idea she’d soon be back at her empty apartment...alone...disturbed her. Evan had willingly slept on her sofa bed the last couple of nights, so she wouldn't have to stay by herself, even though it wasn’t the most comfortable arrangement for him. She hated to be what Julie called a 'scaredy cat’, but when she was alone, every sound seemed amplified, every shadow alarming. If she didn’t get over this soon, she’d have to begin looking in the paper for other living arrangements.

Before Evan left for school that morning, he had informed her that his plans for the evening made it impossible for him to stop by. Too bad. She had begun to rely upon him to make her feel safe, even if she had to ignore the tender look which sometimes filled his spectacular eyes. As attractive as he was, it seemed way too soon after losing David to consider anything but a friendship. She had made that clear from the start.

At Third she exited the El and sprinted the two blocks to her red-brick four-story building. The streets were well lit, but she still had to be alert for anything unusual. Even in the best of neighborhoods, a woman alone had to be on guard at night. Whoever had raped her and murdered David was still out there; maybe waiting for her now. She regularly spoke with the police. but they never had satisfactory answers to her inquiries about the investigation, or a clue as to who might have done it. They were always more focused on her actions and whereabouts, and not on other leads. No matter how many times she asked them about their progress, the answers all led back to her.

She let herself into the dimly lit hallway of her building. Distracted by what was going on around her, she fumbled with the key in the apartment lock, as awkward as a toddler with a new toy. It took several tries before she could open the door. She finally heard the deadbolt bar slide into the lock and rushed inside, thrusting the deadbolt into place behind her.