Defiled Read online

  Carrie grunted something unintelligible. She held her clenched fists down at her sides, spun on her heels, and walked toward her car.

  Dobbins looked at me. “Don’t turn this into World War III. Don’t make me call for backup.”

  I waved the mover over, and we all entered the house. Immediately a large dog began snarling and growling. It was somewhere in the back of the house, in the sunroom or out on the deck. Carrie has a dog? Our mantra had been: no pets, no kids, no problems. We all climbed the stairs to the second floor as Carrie came back into the house.

  Dobbins waited for her and said, “Your dog sounds vicious. Is it secure, ma’am?”

  “He’s a trained German shepherd attack dog, responds to my voice commands.”

  The movers and I walked across the balcony overlooking the ground floor toward the third-floor staircase. I motioned for the workers to climb the narrow stairs but I waited, out of Carrie’s sight, so I could hear the rest of the conversation.

  Dobbins said, “I believe you, but lock him up. We don’t need an incident.”

  Carrie said, “He’s locked in the sunroom. I bought him in case my husband tries to get into the house.”

  Dismissively, the cop said, “I don’t see your husband as a cat burglar. He’s more a white-collar crime kind of guy.”

  “Don’t patronize me, officer. The dog isn’t a burglar alarm; he’s trained to attack intruders. I know what Randle’s capable of, you don’t.”

  “I’m only concerned about today, while we’re all here,” Dobbins said. Then he ascended the stairs to join me and the movers.

  On the third floor, I instructed the men to leave the office furniture for last so that it could be offloaded first at the beach house. My empty family room at the beach house would now become my home office. While they boxed books and knickknacks and carried bookshelves and tables down three flights of stairs, I sat in my desk chair and pulled out my smartphone. Dobbins took a seat on the couch, my former bed.

  “You get everything on this floor, right?” he said.

  “Yeah, this was all mine before we got married. The contentious stuff is on the lower floors.”

  The deputy relaxed, nothing to worry about yet. I motioned at him with my smartphone and said, “Work mail. Just never stops.”

  He grunted. Pretending to scan my mail, I put the phone into Wi-Fi mode and connected with the router that was located in my office. While the deputy lounged and the movers packed and carried, I opened the snooper application and followed instructions, downloading the application and directing its installation on the networked computer named “Carrie.”

  Waiting for the app to install, I moved to the dormer windows that looked out into the backyard and saw that Carrie had fenced a portion of it for the dog, enclosing an area that included the deck off the master bedroom but excluded the pool, which was on a hill at the back of the property. Several pieces of outdoor furniture from the beach house were now positioned around the pool. Carrie hadn’t expected me to have this view.

  Turning back to the deputy, I said, “Do you and my wife know each other? You seemed to recognize one another.”

  The deputy looked pensive, decided to be candid. “I stopped her once, about a year ago. We got into a bit of a hassle.”

  “Oh, you’re that cop. She said you wanted to trade sex for letting her go.”

  The deputy, assuming I was accusing him of wrongdoing, stood and straightened his uniform. “I didn’t assault your wife, sir. She went berserk because I stopped her.”

  “Started yelling rape?”

  As though he still found the incident incredulous, Dobbins said, “No, but she put her hands on me and told me very matter-of-factly that she’d tell everyone I came on to her.”

  “And you gave her a ticket anyway.”

  “Damn right.” Proud of himself.

  “That’s how I knew you hadn’t assaulted her. If you had let her go, I’d have been suspicious. She was angry with me for not filing a complaint against you, but I know my wife lies to get out of trouble. I figured she was lucky not to be in jail.”

  “I should have arrested her. I gave her a ticket, but I should have done more.”

  “Maybe you can. I’ve filed a Baker Act petition to have her examined by a State psychiatrist. She needs help. Would you be willing to testify?”

  The deputy was relieved. “I would. I’d like to help.” He handed me his business card.

  On my smartphone a message appeared: Installation Successful. I found it ironic that I had discussed Carrie’s transgression with a cop while committing my own transgression.

  The movers returned to the office and asked us to move out of our seats. Two movers grabbed the couch, and the third took my desk chair downstairs. I walked into the attic, where the rest of my pre-Carrie possessions were stored, and the deputy followed. It looked like a staged home invasion. Carrie hadn’t bothered to disguise the intrusion because she hadn’t expected me to see this room. She had left boxes open, lids off the totes, and paintings and framed pictures strewn around the floor. Totes that should have been full of documents and records were half-empty.

  As I restored order to the photo albums, pictures, and paintings, I noted a pattern—there were no pictures of Carrie. All pictures in which she had appeared with my parents, pictures of vacations, pictures of our dating days, pictures of our wedding, were gone. Early in our marriage, she had made me dispose of all photos of my life with Glenda. An acute form of insecurity, I supposed; something I thought I could cure with love. I had pretended to comply with her demand but had gotten many of those pictures into Jamie’s hands. I regretted not having taken the same precaution with the photos of life with Carrie. Despite the impending divorce, our marriage had included events I wanted to remember when I sat in a rocking chair on the veranda at some old folks’ home.

  Furious, I leapt to my feet and hustled out of the attic and down the stairs. Startled by the sudden action, the deputy trailed behind. I found Carrie sitting at the dining table, looking innocent.

  “Where’s my stuff?” I shouted at her.

  Carrie shrugged. “I don’t keep track of your things.”

  “What did you do with all the pictures?”

  “Calm down, Randle. I don’t have anything of yours.”

  Pointing my finger at her, I said, “You won’t get away with this.”

  Carrie moved around the far side of the table, putting space between us. To the deputy she said, “Get him out of here. He’s dangerous.”

  Dobbins came up beside me and grabbed my right bicep. “Be cool, sir. We can take a quick look around the house, then we have to get you out of here.”

  Carrie gasped. “You can’t go in my bedroom.”

  Dobbins dragged me along with him as he said over his shoulder, “We won’t disturb anything.”

  I told one of the movers to get a packing box and join us. Then the deputy and I began our tour of the ground floor. In the master bedroom, a room I hadn’t entered for six months, I examined the furnishings as though I were touring a museum. On the nightstand stood a framed photo of Carrie and her family that was at least twenty years old. In the photo, her son, Travis, was a toddler, and her first husband, Chance Dickson, was a grinning father. On her dresser, a large wedding photo was now displayed. Carrie’s second husband, Philip Simmons, looked ready for happily-ever-after in a smart tuxedo. Carrie had secretly preserved her past while she demanded that I erase mine.

  Disgusted, I opened the top drawer of her nightstand revealing reading glasses and a trashy romantic paperback. In the next drawer, I found a vibrator and lubricant. As I pulled the bottom drawer open, the deputy said, “You shouldn’t do that, sir.”

  Carrie’s chrome-plated .22-caliber pistol lay on top of several file folders. I said, “Just trying to see if she’s hidden anything of mine in here.”

  I lifted the edge of the top folder to see what was inside but was careful not to touch the gun. The folder contained her mental healt
h records.

  “Please, sir,” the deputy said as he started toward me.

  I pushed the drawer shut and straightened. Walking away from the nightstand, I said, “How can I see whether she’s hidden my stuff if I don’t look in her drawers?”

  “If you want to look in any concealed space, you’ll need a search warrant. You have probable cause, based on the items missing upstairs.”

  I gave Dobbins a look of resignation. I walked a circuit of the master suite and found one of my favorite paintings hung in an alcove that served as a dressing area, separating the bedroom proper from the walk-in closets. I pulled it off the wall, and Dobbins made a questioning sound.

  “It’s on my list.”

  The deputy nodded, understanding that Carrie hadn’t intended to surrender it. “More probable cause.”

  I carried the painting down the hallway to the foyer. Carrie, sitting at the dining table, said, “Oh, forgot that one.”

  I said, “Yeah, mistake anyone could have made. Ha ha.” I handed the painting to one of the movers and told him to put it in the Bronco.

  Dobbins and I resumed our search of the premises, trailed by Pancho Villa with empty boxes. We went from room to room and found items Carrie had taken from the beach house and things that should have been on my list. Dobbins watched the proceedings but made no comment. All the while, the dog howled and made a racket.

  In the sunroom, the blinds were cranked open, and through the slats I saw the German shepherd. Over and over, it jumped against the door, threatening to break through the glass. It was huge, perhaps seventy-five or eighty pounds of unbridled violence. On the floor were the tattered remains of two stuffed rabbits, their innards scattered around the room like driftwood on a beach. I took a picture of the dog in midleap.

  Two movers now held full boxes waiting for instructions. I told them to carry the boxes straight out the door without stopping, without even looking at Mrs. Marks. I went first, followed by the movers, and then Dobbins, who had become a part of the boys’ team.

  When Carrie saw the boxes, she jumped to her feet. “What’s all that?”

  The movers kept walking toward the front doors. I said, “Stuff that you forgot to pack for me.”

  To Dobbins I said, “Let’s go through the second-floor rooms. Then we can get out of here.”

  I started up the main staircase as Carrie took off after the movers. She yelled, “Wait! Let me see what’s in the boxes.”

  The movers didn’t stop. They walked right out the front doors. The deputy was now confused about what to do next: stop Carrie or join me upstairs? He decided to stop Carrie. He stepped in front of her and said, “Your husband only took what’s his. Don’t cause a scene.”

  Carrie stared at the deputy with hatred, astonishment, and bewilderment all competing to be her primary emotion. She backed down and walked through the dining room and the kitchen to have a look at the garage. Dobbins went to the front doors and surveyed the scene outside. The movers were loading boxes from the attic and packing the furniture from the office into the container. Dobbins walked off the porch and toward the garage apron so he could referee if Carrie objected to what the movers were doing.

  Upstairs, I looked through spare bedrooms and bathrooms, opened closets, and knelt to peer under beds, but I found nothing that had been taken from the attic. In the room that Carrie called her office, she had a three-drawer filing cabinet. I tried the drawers, but they were locked. In the media room, I noticed that the door to the second-story balcony had been fitted with a doggy-door so the beast could go in and out as it needed. The door seemed more appropriate for a dog the size of a collie, but once through the door and onto the balcony, it could go down a set of stairs to the deck and into the fenced portion of the backyard. Ingenious, I had to admit, eliminating the need to defile any of the formal rooms on the main floor.

  In the second master, the suite I had used after I had been kicked out of the downstairs master, I found a few scraps of clothing hanging in the closet and a few more in a corner of the room, but the drawers had been emptied, the bathroom cleaned out. I had been eradicated from the country house.

  I guessed it was time to get out of Dodge. Bouncing down the main staircase, I saw the deputy out on the driveway with his back to the house. Carrie was no longer sitting at the dining table. Did she go to her bedroom or the other way, to the garage? It’s now or never. I wasn’t sure if it was terror or excitement I felt as I darted down the hallway to the master bedroom and scampered around the bed to the nightstand. The whole day had been a microcosm of life with Carrie: Carrie would do something childish and I would respond in kind. We were a bad match—not like oil and water, substances that don’t mix; more like two harmless chemicals that when combined create an explosive compound.

  I lifted three file folders from the bottom drawer and wrapped them in the jumble of clothes under my arm. Considering the pistol, I hesitated. Was it better to take it or leave it? Take it so she can’t use it to shoot you. I stuck it in my belt in the small of my back, under my T-shirt, like some gang hoodlum. It was a small weapon—a girl’s gun that could be hidden in any of Carrie’s designer handbags—but it dug into my flesh and threatened to pop out or slide down my pants as I walked. Hollywood makes this look easy.

  With the folders under my arm, buried in the clothes gathered from my bedroom, I eased down the hallway to the staircase. If I got caught, I’d say I had taken one last look around the ground floor. I reached the staircase without being noticed, shuffled up several steps, and waited for someone to see me descending.

  The deputy came through the front doors and was relieved to see me come down the stairs. He said, “If you’re done, let’s bring this to a close.”

  “All done here.” I walked into the dining room, pulled a garage door opener and a set of keys from my pocket, and plunked it all down on the table.

  Carrie heard it, walked in from the kitchen, saw the keys and opener on the table, and said, “Are you finally getting out of my home?”

  I said, “You have a restraining order, a guard dog, an alarm system, and a gun.” I turned to the deputy and said, “She has a pistol here somewhere, officer.” Facing Carrie again, I finished with, “What’s next, a moat and a drawbridge?”

  Speaking more to Dobbins than to me, she said, “I’ll do whatever I have to do to protect myself against this man. And I don’t have a gun, but I should probably buy one.”

  I stifled a grin. She was right: She no longer had a gun.

  I said, “Give me the garage door opener and keys to the beach house. Please.”

  Carrie went back to the kitchen and returned with my keys and opener in a yellow mailing envelope.

  With a smile for Carrie, I said, “Thanks. See you at mediation. I’m sure that will go as well for you as today did.”

  As Carrie lunged at me, claws bared, Dobbins slipped between us and pushed me toward the doors. We were on the front porch before we heard Carrie shout, “I have proof, Randle. You don’t.”

  Huh? The deputy and I sauntered toward the movers and the PODS truck, all poised for action.

  “Button it up,” I said. “We’re outta here.”

  I dropped the clothes and the files onto the backseat floorboard of the SUV. Pancho Villa closed the door to the container, and the PODS driver winched it onto his flatbed.

  As we watched the operation, Dobbins said, “You headed for I-75?”

  “Yes, Dolphin Beach. I have a little bungalow down there.”

  Dobbins nodded. “I’ll follow you out and make sure she doesn’t.”

  We shook hands, and he slapped me on my shoulder while Carrie scowled at us from the front porch.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  As the sun rose over the Intracoastal Waterway, lighting and warming my backyard, I sat beside the pool drinking a cup of coffee, thinking how odd it was that with the simple move of a few possessions, I had erased four years of my personal history and reverted to my former status as a bum in a beac
h bungalow. Sitting there in my new chaise lounge chair, I couldn’t stop thinking about all the outdoor furniture now at the country house. It drove me crazy that I hadn’t taken the pieces, so I retreated to the air-conditioned interior. By the time I got home the previous evening and the movers had offloaded the office furniture, I had been too exhausted to do anything but affix a padlock to the PODS container and collapse on my bed. Now I turned my attention to my prizes—the three files I had taken from the bottom drawer of Carrie’s nightstand.

  The medical file was innocuous. No maladies had been diagnosed or treated while we were married. Mrs. Marks was healthy and could expect to live for several more decades. Too bad—alimony ends with the death of either litigant.

  The mental health file was a goldmine. It contained receipts for Carrie’s irregular visits to the counselor I had met. There were periods when Carrie saw the counselor once a month; occasions when she saw the counselor twice in a single week; stretches when she didn’t see the counselor at all. If the visits were plotted on a graph, they would depict the peaks and valleys of our relationship. We had been happy in inverse relation to Carrie’s counseling visits.

  The file also contained receipts for prescriptions written by a psychiatrist on a quarterly basis over the entire length of our relationship. Over time, the drugs and dosages had changed. When I met her, she was taking two drugs, one for depression and one for anxiety. I looked them up on the Internet and found that among the side effects of the antidepressant was a loss of interest in sex. No kidding.

  Instead of the antidepressant, Carrie now took a drug prescribed for “major” depressive disorders, and instead of the “mother’s-little-helper” drug, she now took a powerful concoction for “anxiety disorder.” Among the side effects of that drug, Wikipedia listed aggressive, angry agitation. No kidding.

  Recently, Carrie had been prescribed two oft-advertised antipsychotics. It wasn’t my imagination: The drugs she had listed on the employee benefits questionnaire had been replaced by more powerful medications as her mental health deteriorated. Diagnoses once described as generalized depression and anxiety were now major depressive disorder and anxiety disorder. More shocking still, Carrie wasn’t just an irascible golddigger; she was one of the millions of people who swam in the open sea of humanity while hiding serious mental health problems that were suppressed—just barely—by powerful drugs. You don’t take antipsychotics unless you’re psychotic, right?