I gave her a quick rundown while driving out of the airport maze. Then I asked the question I had been wanting to ask. “What do you know about child psychology?”

“Child psych? I know kids don’t like getting stuck with needles. For more in-depth insight you’d have to ask someone else. It’s not my field. Why do you want to know?”

“A case. A kid who’s scared of something, but won’t talk about it.”

“That could be anything. I can give you some names if you think it would help.”

“Thanks. It might.” I merged into the interstate traffic, then with my gear-shifting over until we got to the French Quarter, I reached over and took Cordelia’s hand. She returned my grasp, her hand firm and warm.

We said little, Cordelia even closed her eyes for a while, avoiding most of Metairie.

After letting her get out, it took me about fifteen minutes and much cursing at stupid tourist parking before I finally found a place to park.

Cordelia was still looking through her mail when I came in. “There’s something about traveling that makes me feel like I really need to wash it off,” she said as I entered. She put her arms on my shoulders. “Thanks. I do appreciate your being here. I…like your company…” She trailed off, then pulled me to her, an awkward embrace, as if she wasn’t quite sure what my reaction would be or how far she should commit herself.

I kissed her. Cordelia instantly responded, kissing me back, as if her only hesitancy had been an unwillingness to push against my reticence. I opened my mouth, inviting her to kiss me deeply. Her response was again immediate, her tongue against mine. Her arms tightened around me.

I broke it off. “Go take your shower,” I whispered in her ear, then kissed her cheek, not wanting our break to seem too abrupt.

“Yeah, I guess I do need to do that,” she said, her eyes still half closed, then she added, “Would you like to join me?”

“I took a bath just before I went to get you. And I want you to take a quick shower.”

“Your wish is my command,” Cordelia said as she headed for the bathroom.

I sat down on her couch, glancing distractedly at a magazine from her accumulated mail. Is this how it goes, this awkward dance to intimacy—halting, jerking, shying at any obstacle? I had needed to pull away from her. I didn’t know why I felt so threatened.

Fuck analysis, I thought, it only leads to more questions. I opened the magazine and forced myself to read a story about the rain forests.

Cordelia reappeared three pages into the rain forests, wrapped in a towel, her hair wet. “God, I feel much better,” she said, running her fingers through her hair to help dry it.

“You still look the same. Fabulous.”

She flashed me a quick smile as if to say, “Thanks, I almost believe you.” I remember her telling me of once overhearing her grandfather say, “Cordelia got the brains, but Karen got the looks.” I wondered how disappointed her grandfather, father, and, perhaps, even her mother were that she wasn’t ever going to be blond, petite, and pretty.

She was tall and big-boned, her breasts full, voluptuous, her stomach rounded and soft, and her hips wide, the center of her gravity. It was one thing I wanted very much to give to Cordelia, the belief that in her very special and unique way, she was strikingly beautiful.

“Should I bother putting on clothes for you to take off?” she asked.

“No need. But keep your towel on for a bit.” I put the magazine down. “I want to see what your erect nipples look like under terry cloth.”

“The bedroom?” she inquired, holding out her hand for me.

“The bed, even,” I said as I took her hand, then stood to follow her into the bedroom. But as we got in the door, I said, “Cordelia, not to be too disruptive, but do you have any of those child psych names?”

“Oh, of course,” she said, letting go of my hand. She had a desk in the corner of her bedroom, a secretary that had come down from several generations. It was where she kept her personal correspondence and things related to family or friends. Out in the living room was her large, practical desk, which contained her bills, checks, medical journals, and the like. Cordelia went to the secretary and opened one of the small drawers in the desk section. Pulling out a stack of miscellaneous papers from the drawer, she took a card off the top, flipped quickly through the rest of the papers, but took nothing else. She put them back into the drawer, keeping only the card.

Then she turned back to me and handed me the card. I glanced at it. “Lindsey McNeil, M.D. By appointment only” and a phone number were all that was on it. It was typeset on expensive gray card stock.

“Lindsey’s very good,” Cordelia said by way of explanation. “Mention my name when you call. Tell Lindsey that…she owes me this one.”

“How do you know her?” I asked, catching a shadow passing in her voice.

“Residency. She was chief resident in pysch when I rotated through.” Cordelia changed the subject. “When do I get to take this towel off?”

“Not yet,” I answered, putting the card in my wallet. “Sit on the bed,” I told her.

I stood in front of her, still fully dressed. Her legs were between mine. She started to put her arms around me, but I shook my head. I brushed her hair back, then bent over to run my tongue along the rim on her ear. I moved my weight onto the bed, sitting in Cordelia’s lap, straddling her. She took a sharp breath as I began softly kissing her neck, using both my lips and tongue.

“Lie down,” I instructed as I moved away from her neck.

“I should go away more often,” she said as she lay back, her arms above her head.

“No, you should come back more often,” I amended.

Somehow I had to be in control tonight, to be the one setting the pace, the intensity. For a moment, I realized that not to have control frightened me. But I didn’t know why and I didn’t want to think about it.

I pulled the towel off Cordelia.

Chapter 11

Lindsey McNeil. I looked at the card. I wondered what she might tell me about Cordelia. More importantly, I reminded myself, could she help with Cissy?

First, another cup of coffee. I was at my place, trying to wake up. I hadn’t gotten much sleep. Neither had Cordelia, but I assumed that life-and-death crises would keep her alert. I, on the other hand, was sitting at my desk with only a sleeping cat and a few unpaid bills to liven things up.

With a full cup of coffee in front of me, I braced myself for the usual runaround of “not in, busy, in a meeting” and promises of being called back sometime before the turn of the century, and dialed the number on the card.

An efficient secretary answered the phone. So far the usual, I thought, after being put on hold before I even got to say who I was.

I amused myself by timing my holding pattern. Ms. Efficient came back on the line exactly fifty-nine seconds later. I told her who I was and that, “Dr. Cordelia James gave me Dr. McNeil’s name. She suggested that Dr. McNeil might answer some questions I have about child psychology.” I added, “Cordelia said to tell Lindsey that she owed her this one.”

Ms. E. put me on hold again, which I took as a good sign. It meant that instead of just brushing me off, she was checking with the great doctor herself. It was forty-five seconds this time.

“Dr. McNeil wants to know if you have some free time this afternoon. She can see you around four thirty, if that’s convenient.”

I told Ms. E. that it was, and she gave me the address, a comfortable uptown block, not St. Charles Avenue, but Prytania, the next street over. Well, did Dr. McNeil have a cancellation and just happen to be bored enough to talk to an unknown P.I.? Or was her sudden availability a measure of what she owed Cordelia?

I got another cup of coffee and wrote out checks to cover the bills that demanded attention. With the money Karen was giving me, I could afford to pay them in a timely manner, thereby preserving truth, beauty, and the American way, at least as far as capitalism was concerned.

Midway through the final bill, the phone rang. It was Karen. “Micky,” she said. “Joey called.”

“What did he want?”

“He didn’t say. He just left a message,” was her less than helpful elaboration.

“What did the message say?”

“That he would call back later.”

“That’s it?” I demanded.

“Well, so far. You did tell me to call you if he called,” Karen defended.

I had. Somehow, I didn’t think she would take it so literally. “Okay,” I replied, “if he calls back, let me know.”

“Uh…sure. You could come over here and wait for his call, you know.”

For a moment, I thought I noticed uncertainty in Karen’s voice. Not possible, I told myself. But I did bite back my first reply—“I can, but I won’t”—and instead answered, “I know, but I’ve got a lot of things I need to do. You’ll be okay.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“I’ll talk to you soon, Karen.” That seemed to cheer her and we hung up.

Busy turned out to be doing my laundry. Clean clothes sounded like the order of the day to meet Dr. McNeil. I headed uptown a little before four. I wanted to be safely through the CBD (Central Business District, a sporadic hodgepodge of tall buildings on the uptown side of Canal Street) before the narrow streets became engorged with fleeing suits and dresses with high heels—ever so boringly on men and women, respectively.

At around four twenty I arrived at the address Ms. Efficiency had given me. It was a house, one of several well-preserved Victorians in the area. Other than it being the corner house and having some extra parking spaces opened up next to the drive, nothing differentiated this house from the others on the block.

I pulled into the driveway, parking toward the back, next to a fairly new Toyota Celica. On the other side of it was a red Jaguar. Parked nearer the driveway entrance was a boxy Cadillac with one of those obnoxious furry things stuck to its back window.

The front door opened and an uptown lady and her pouty teenaged daughter came out. With a quick glance and dismissal of my out-of-date Datsun, they got into the Cadillac. I wondered if the daughter was getting enough therapy to realize that, despite all her rebellion, she was turning into her mother. They pulled out and drove away.

That, I surmised, left the other two cars for the doctor and Ms. Efficiency, and I doubted that Ms. E.’s was the Jag. What kind of child psychiatrist drives a red Jaguar, I wondered. Time to find out. There was a small brass plaque next to the door that read, “L. McNeil, M.D.,” but you had to be on the porch before you could read it. Very discreet. For a moment, I wondered if Dr. McNeil was a lesbian, then I rang the buzzer, announcing my presence to Ms. E. She responded by buzzing me in.

I entered a comfortable and tasteful waiting room. Its main focus, and diversion for the kids, was a large and well-stocked aquarium. I found myself drawn to its flashes of gold and silver cavorting about, an iridescent blue flickering behind them.

“Ms. Knight?” a voice called me away.

“Yes,” I replied, turning to face Ms. Efficiency. She was a tall, striking black woman, dressed elegantly but comfortably in a bright turquoise jumpsuit. It was a style and color I could never pull off. I wondered how Dr. McNeil’s uptown trade liked being put on hold by this woman. Then I realized that Lindsey McNeil, with her red Jaguar, probably didn’t care.

“Dr. McNeil will be with you in just a moment,” she said. A small brass plate, similar to the one outside, announced that she was Amanda Jackson. “Time to feed the fishes,” she continued, coming around the partition that divided her area from the waiting room. “Want to help?” She flashed a broad smile.

A child would be enchanted. But I wasn’t a child. “No, no thanks,” I replied. “I’d probably overfeed them or something.”

Amanda showed no such reticence. She poured a layer of fish treats on the water. “Come and get it. Don’t hide behind the rock, Erato. Thalia, you’re overeating again.”

“You name the fish?”

“How else would you know what to call them?” Amanda Jackson replied.

A soft chime on her desk sounded. “Dr. McNeil will see you now,” she said, motioning me before her.

I went around the reception area, then down a hallway. Amanda pointed me toward an open door.

“Thank you,” I said to her retreating figure.

I entered Dr. McNeil’s office. It was a large, yet friendly room, an oak bookcase in one corner, a deep blue Oriental rug on the floor, a couch, its material matching the rug, several other chairs, and, off-center enough so that it didn’t dominate the room, an antique desk. Lindsey McNeil was seated behind it.

“You’re Michele Knight, I presume,” she said.

“Yes, I am,” I answered. She was classically beautiful—nose, eyes, jaw, all in perfect proportion. Her lips were full, adding sensuality to a face that could have been austere without a hint of licentiousness. Her eyes were blue-gray, confident and direct, a contrast to her playful, sensual mouth. This was definitely a woman who would be a child psychiatrist and drive an expensive red sports car. She was also, I suspected a woman who could give the illusion that you knew her well, when, in fact, you knew only a small part of her. Her hair was full, chestnut brown, cut casually short. A pair of glasses was perched on the top of her head. I wondered if she really needed them or just used the studiousness glasses implied to counterbalance her looks. She also had, I couldn’t help noticing, perfect breasts, high and round, just large enough that attention had to be paid, but not so huge as to be overwhelming. I quickly looked back at her face, not wanting her to catch me staring at her breasts. Her slight smile gave no clue as to whether or not she had seen where my attention had been briefly focused.

“And you, of course, are Dr. McNeil,” I said, stating the obvious.

“Please sit,” she said, not offering to let me call her Lindsey, I noted. She indicated a chair beside her desk. “So what can I do for you, Ms. Knight?”

I didn’t offer to let her call me Micky, either.

I began by asking a few questions, getting a basic introduction to development in prepubescent girls as an answer. Lindsey McNeil seemed willing to take the time to answer my questions with a broad range of information. Clearly, she wasn’t going to stint or hurry this interview. Again, I couldn’t help but wonder if her generosity with her time was related to what she owed Cordelia. I finally got to my main purpose and gave her a brief description of Cissy and what was going on.

“It’s hard to say,” Lindsey replied, “without having seen the child or her mother. This is all speculation.”

“What do you speculate?”

“The usual suspects. No bruises, scars, or broken bones makes physical abuse less likely. That leaves either psychological abuse or sexual abuse. A young girl with an often absent mother is a prime candidate for sexual abuse. That’s my best guess. Again, this is just speculation,” she emphasized.

“That’s it?” I questioned, somehow annoyed that it so quickly came down to this.

“Best guess. I gather you don’t like it.”

“Why should I like the idea of a nine-year-old girl being—that,” I broke off, needing to get my sudden anger under control.

“There are other possibilities, of course,” she said calmly. “And we can hope her behavior change is only due to one of those many rough patches on the way to growing up.” Lindsey looked directly at me, “But I do want to be honest with you.”

“Yes, be honest,” I affirmed.

She nodded, then said, “It’s not easy to confront the possibility that someone we care about is being sexually molested.”