Her fingers parted the doll’s hair. “The women I worked with—the ones who’d gotten past the fear and the denial and were in touch with what was being done to them—had the same look I sometimes saw in Hope’s eyes. Part injury, part rage—I can only call it ferocious. In Hope’s case it was strikingly discrepant from her usual manner.”
“Which was?”
“Cool and collected. Very cool and collected.”
“In control.”
“Very much so. She was a leader, had tremendous force of personality. But when we discussed abuse, I saw that look in her eyes. Not always, but frequently enough to remind me of the women at the shelter.”
She gave a shy smile. “No doubt I’m overinterpreting.”
“Did she ask you to serve because of your experience at the shelter?”
She nodded. “We first met at a faculty tea, one of those dreadful things at the beginning of the academic year where everyone pretends to get acquainted? Gerry had gone off to talk sports with some guys and Hope came up to me. She was also alone.”
“Her husband wasn’t there?”
“No. She said he never came to parties. She certainly didn’t know me, I’d just arrived. I didn’t know who she was but I had noticed her. Because of her clothes. Expensive designer suit, good jewelry, great makeup. Like some of the girls I’d known from Lake Forest—heiresses. You don’t see much of that on campus. We got to talking and I told her about the shelter.”
She moved in a way that pinched the doll’s soft torso and caused its head to pitch forward.
“The funny thing is, all those years I hadn’t talked about it. Even to my husband.” Smile. “And as you can tell, I have no problem talking. But there I was at a party, with a virtual stranger, getting into things I’d forgotten about—horrendous things. I actually had to go into a corner to dry my eyes. Looking back, I think Hope drew the memories out of me.”
“How?”
“By listening the right way. Don’t you people call it active listening?” She smiled again. “Just what you’re doing right now. I learned about that, too, at the shelter. I suppose anyone can grasp the rudiments but there are few virtuosos.”
“Like Hope.”
She laughed. “There, just what you’re doing: bouncing things back. It works even when you know what’s going on, doesn’t it?”
I smiled and stroked my chin and said, “Sounds like you think it’s effective,” in a stagy voice.
She laughed again, got up, and closed the door. She was shapely, and taller than I’d thought: five-eight or -nine, a good deal of it legs.
“Yes,” she said, sitting down again and crossing them. “She was a brilliant listener. Had a way of . . . moving in. Not just emotionally, actually getting close physically—inching toward you. But without seeming intrusive. Because she made you feel as if you were the most important person in the world.”
“Charisma and passion.”
“Yes. Like a good evangelist.”
The legs uncrossed. “This must sound so strange. First I tell you I didn’t know her, and then I go on as if I did. But everything I’ve said is just an impression. She and I never got close, though at first I thought she wanted a friend.”
“Why’s that?”
“The day after the tea she called me saying she’d really enjoyed meeting me, would I like to have coffee in the Faculty Club. I was ambivalent. I liked her but I didn’t want to talk about the shelter again. Even so, I accepted. Determined to keep my mouth shut.” The doll bounced. “Unbelievably, I ended up talking again. About the worst cases I’d seen: women who’d been brutalized beyond comprehension. That was the first time I saw the ferociousness in her eyes.”
She looked at the doll, put it back on the shelf. “All this can’t possibly help you.”
“It might.”
“How?”
“By illuminating her personality,” I said. “Right now, there’s little else to go on.”
“That assumes her personality had something to do with her being murdered.”
“You don’t think it did?”
“I have no idea. When I found out she’d been killed, my first assumption was that her politics had angered some psychotic.”