Chapter Five
Jake Chandler inserted his front door key into the lock and entered the hallway of his house, hesitating before he closed the door behind him. He was bone weary: tired to the point of physical pain.
Chandler lived out of town, on the way to Queens, in a small house, just off the main freeway. It was a quiet neighborhood, occupied by many of his colleagues and therefore had a low crime rate.
He had bought the house for his wife, Jules. They had both loved the layout on the very first viewing, and even though the place needed work, they had the same vision and could see the potential.
“We can’t raise kids in an apartment,” Jules had said. “But this place is perfect.”
Once the house was theirs, Jules had taken pride in painting and decorating it herself while Chandler worked. But their dream turned sour when Jules became sick.
After several consultations and many tests, they learned that Jules had multiple sclerosis; it was destroying her body at an alarming rate. Within a few months of moving into their dream home, Jules couldn’t walk without the aid of a walking stick. Then there were the attacks that confined her to bed. She couldn’t walk in a straight line during those times, even with the stick.
The memories of their happy plans always flooded Chandler as he entered the hall. It was why he always hesitated just for a fraction of a second every time he came into his home.
He glanced to the right and looked into the darkness of the room there.
“And this … will be the play room,” Jules had said. He could still hear the happy giggle she made as she had entered the then empty room for the first time.
Now the room was filled with adult furniture.
Chandler flicked the light switch on and stared into the room without seeing it. He barely noticed the expensive dining table and chairs, or the bureau containing Royal Doulton china. What he saw was how the room should have been. He imagined it full of children’s toys, with Jules sitting in a rocking chair, holding the baby they had so desperately wanted. Her beautiful smile would light up her eyes in that girlish excited way she had.
But that was never to be.
His mind flashed a montage of images: bottles of pills, medicines, lumbar punctures with tubes of fluid being drawn from his wife’s spine. All he wanted to remember were her smiles, but the suffering he had seen sometimes blighted the good memories.
Chandler turned back to the hallway switching on lights as he went across to the room opposite. He hated the darkness now, and the empty feeling the house had when he returned home. In the living room, he turned on the television. The noise helped—otherwise the house was too still, too quiet, too empty.
In the kitchen, he turned on the radio and opened the fridge, pulling free a TV dinner which he placed in the microwave. Then he poured a large measure of gin into a glass, added ice, lemon and a splash of tonic. He sipped it, grimacing at the strong taste before adding more tonic water.
The microwave pinged and he withdrew the meal, placing the melting plastic quickly down on the breakfast bar. He peeled back the cover, picked up a fork and began to eat the tasteless contents direct from the packet. He hardly ever used the plates that Jules had carefully chosen.
“You want to be ashamed of yourself. In that condition, at this time of the day!” an old woman had said as Jules had staggered down the street, trying to get home after taking ill in the supermarket.
When she told Chandler the story later, she laughed that someone had thought she was drunk, but he could see that she was putting on a brave face. It was a typically New York cruel, unfeeling, judgment based on what this person thought they were seeing, but having no understanding that his wife had a serious illness. It made Chandler angry even though there was no way he could protect Jules from this kind of negativity.
They let it go, moved forward. Tried to keep positive while trying new treatments that seemed to work for a short time, but invariably ended in Jules having a relapse. Chandler was grateful for the medical insurance his job gave him and his wife. Without it he couldn’t imagine how they would have coped.
“I want a child,” Jules told the specialist one day. “Maybe we should go ahead with that now.”
“In your condition that would be inadvisable,” replied the doctor. “With MS as severe as yours, pregnancy would only accelerate the disease.”
The MS was already advancing faster than the medication could mitigate it. Not that it was very effective to begin with. There was really nothing the doctors could do for this kind of degenerative disease, other than treat the symptoms and pump his wife full of steroids that bloated her lovely features. But for all of this, Jules put on a brave face. She never complained and, if anything, made light of the situation.
As he ate his microwave meal, Chandler remembered how Jules had loved this kitchen. She had been a great cook but as the months following the diagnosis dragged on she had let a lot of things slide. It wasn’t that she was too sick to clean or cook, not physically anyway, but she had lost something. Some pride or love for the house. He didn’t know which. Chandler just knew that she resented the place as though everything here was bad luck.
I should have known how bad things had become. I should have noticed.
He had noticed on some level. As usual he had been working hard. One homicide led to another and he found himself leading a serial murder case. It took up so much of his waking hours. His work days became longer but he didn’t think Jules minded because she never complained.
Then the death threats came; supposedly from the killer he was hunting. He began to send Chandler notes and messages, telling him that he would make his wife the next victim. The detective had to take it seriously and report it to his senior. After that an officer began to sit outside their house every day.
By then Jules could barely look after herself. Chandler had hired someone to come in and help every day and take care of the shopping. Jules was bedridden, catheterized. She rallied slower after each relapse. He wasn’t sure how long each bout would go on for. But at least it meant that he didn’t have to complicate the surveillance. Jules wasn’t going out so the monitoring all happened at home.
Chandler didn’t tell Jules about the threats. He hadn’t wanted to worry her and they were so close to finding the killer that he knew she wouldn’t be in any danger.
The real menace of course was already there. It was festering inside her like a poisoned, rotting seed and it had started the day the doctor told her she could never have children. All that time when he was busy, Jules was quietly losing her mind, and Chandler hadn’t noticed.
What kind of husband was I? How could I ever have said I loved you when I didn’t know what you were going through?
Chandler threw the empty food carton into the trash and tossed his fork into the sink. It wouldn’t matter. His cleaning lady took care of his home now and she would be visiting tomorrow. Not that he was ever home enough to really mess the place up.
Chandler climbed the stairs and halted at the top before entering the bathroom. He couldn’t go inside without first remembering. This was where he had found her: naked, her head resting on the toilet bowl as though she had accidentally fallen asleep. And he might have thought that but for the blood and vomit and shit that covered the floor.
She had tried to end her life the obvious way at first. Slashed her wrist but didn’t realize that once she had cut the tendon in one arm it would become useless and she couldn’t cut the other arm. Then she had taken pills. But her body conspired against her and she vomited them up while soiling herself. She had taken her clothes off in an attempt to clean herself up. The slow, but steady, blood loss weakened her so much that she barely had energy. Forensics said that she had tried to clean up the mess from the floor. Chandler could only imagine the effort it would have been for her in her current condition. That was when she thought to use the bleach.
The room had reeked of it.
Chandler couldn’t even imagine what must have been going through her mind in order to make her drink the stuff. Maybe she thought it would help her die sooner. The result of course was agony. The pain of dying was on her face, and Chandler would never forget her frozen expression.
Chandler closed his eyes. The memory burned behind his lids and he was overwhelmed by it once more. It was so completely horrible and cruel. His wife had been so beautiful, yet now all he could remember was the awful state he had found her in. The overpowering odor of bleach filled his nostrils, even though Chandler knew there was none in the house.
He covered his mouth and nose, breathed deeply through his fingers. As he calmed, the feelings of loss receded and were replaced by his fury.
He reached out and switched on the light. The bathroom, clean and stain free, lit up and he took a step into the room pushing his rage up until his cheeks flushed and his jaw clenched.
He stared at himself in the cabinet mirror above the sink. He looked crazed. His gray eyes slightly cold, spittle forced itself between his teeth. If anyone deserved to be insane, Chandler knew it was him. But the anger was short-lived no matter how he forced it. He couldn’t hate her selfishness, nor blame her for not telling him how unhappy she had been. Deep down he believed he had been the egocentric one, and that his blindness to her grief had made him a failure. He had promised to love and keep her. He had thought they would see old age together. He had failed her in every way he could.
Regret followed and the tears came as they did every night since her death. Chandler felt like a drowning man who constantly gasped in mouthfuls of air to prolong his agony. Sometimes he thought about following her, but therein laid the biggest rub. He was not brave enough to end it all. Despite everything, he would carry on living, and hope, like his shrink said, that one day he would be able to enter the bathroom and not remember.
He turned on the tap, filled the sink and swilled his face in cold water. As he pulled the plug he heard his house phone calling and hurried from the bathroom into his bedroom.
“Jake? How are you this evening?”
It was Lauren Michaels, his shrink. Talk of the devil.
“The same. You know how it is.”
“Do you need to talk?” Lauren asked.
“I’ll be okay until the session tomorrow.”
“That’s why I’m calling. I have to go out of town for a few days. I won’t be available tomorrow, but I wanted to give you my cell phone number in case you need me.”
Chandler wrote down the number on the pad he kept by the phone.
“I’m interested in talking about your new case with you,” Lauren said. “How are you coping? I saw the news report, and that Cassandra Moúsa is involved.”
“Yes. Moúsa’s been a pain, and she loves the media.”
“Perhaps you should back out of this one?” Lauren suggested. “Another high-profile case might be the last thing you need right now.”
Chandler said nothing for a moment as he thought through her words.
“Is that the captain’s wishes or do you really think that?” he asked finally.
“Jake, I don’t answer to the force, even though they pay me to see you. Our chats are confidential and they will stay that way. It’s my job to take care of you and make the best suggestions for you, not your bosses. I’m worried about you, but if you think you can handle this then I will do my best to support you. What I do ask is this: think it over. This is a lot of stress at a very crucial stage of your grieving process. It might be too much for you right now.”
“Okay. I’ll think on it. But, Dr. … Lauren … I find work helps take my mind off things. Doing nothing is worse.”
“All right. I’ll trust your instincts on this. But if you need me, call. Night or day.”
“Thanks.”
Chandler stared at the number on the pad for a moment. He sighed. He couldn’t help wondering if Lauren was right, but the case was interesting and he didn’t feel as though he could pass it on.
This revelation surprised him. For the past few months he had been “going through the motions” with little or no real interest in the investigations beyond the facts and evidence. His emotions had, strangely, become entangled in this one. Though he couldn’t understand why.
He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and began to add Lauren’s number to his contacts.
He was aware that he had begun to rely on her. He recognized that sinking feeling when she said she would be away, and that he wouldn’t see her tomorrow: disappointment. She kept him grounded and he was glad that she had called that evening, even if he didn’t want to do what she suggested. There was something about discussing things with her that made decisions become clearer.
He had, in fact, been toying with passing this case on to someone else until the very moment that she called. Now he knew that he had to see this through for his own sanity. His future mental health depended on it. Win or lose, he would go up against Cassandra Moúsa and provide the evidence and facts for the court to decide Juniper’s guilt or innocence. Whatever that was yet, Chandler wasn’t sure. Then again, maybe this was the egotistical side of him that had always led him down the wrong path.