Amnesia (20 page)
Authors: G. H. Ephron
“Sure. It happens to everyone,” Chip answered. “It's a question of degree. We need to poke so many holes in the foundation of her story that it's clear to the jury that it's built on sand.”
Annie offered, “But you'll need to be careful. Badgering can backfire.”
Chip agreed. “Right. I don't want to make her seem more of a victim than she already is.”
“Sylvia Jackson's not on trial for murder,” I said coldly, echoing the words of her ex-husband. Annie and Chip stared at me. I got up and tried to pace, but the office was too small. “It would be a whole lot more satisfying if murder trials were about figuring out who's guilty. About getting at the truth. Instead, they're all about appearance, about manipulating the jurors' perceptions. I know. Let's design a board game. Call it Murder Squad. The goal is to collect as much money as you can and never go to jail.”
“Peter,” Annie said gently, “we're the good guys. The trial starts next Monday and Stuart Jackson is depending on us.”
THE TRIAL was into its second week and I was more and more anxious as the day I'd have to testify approached. I was getting up early to work on my car, putting in a full day at the Pearce, rowing at dusk, relying on routine to pull me through.
Chip called me every other night with an update. They'd selected a jury and forensic evidence was being presented. The DA. was using that evidence to meticulously build a case that pointed to Stuart Jackson as the murderer. But there were holes. No one had seen him in Cambridge on the night of the murder, a night when he claimed to be home with the flu. The gun still hadn't been found. The prosecution speculated that it was the .22-caliber handgun now missing from Syl's bedside table. No one had been able to explain how Tony's hair wound up in Stuart Jackson's camouflage cap. The single thumbprint on the steering wheel of Syl's car, a steering wheel otherwise wiped clean of prints, remained unexplained. It didn't belong to Syl. It wasn't Stuart's or Tony's, either. Find the owner of that thumbprint, Chip had suggested to the jury, and you'll find the real killer. Find the owner of that thumbprint, the D.A. told them, and you'll find the mechanic who last serviced the car.
At the hospital, we had our hands full. Miracle cures are always suspect, and Maria Whitson was having one.
Gloria spotted it first. “Have you noticed the change? She's too bright and it's too all of a sudden. It feels as if she's on something.”
“You're worried?”
“Concerned. No question about it, she's made progress. But there's something about her that doesn't add up.”
When I found Maria Whitson, she looked nothing like the puffy, doped-up person we'd admitted more than four weeks earlier. Once lifeless little indentations, her eyes were now bright and enormous, with less face around them. Her skin was clear and her hair was clean and artfully arranged to frame her face. If you disregarded the baggy sweats that needed a good washing, she looked like a woman you'd see on Newbury Street having wine at a tapas bar.
“I'm feeling so much better,” she told me. The words came out in a rush and seemed a little too loud. “And I've decided to see my parents. I know I'll be ready to leave soon.”
As she waited for me to respond, she shifted back and forth from one foot to the other. Though her arms were still, I could sense the effort it took on her part to keep them from flying about.
I hedged. “I'm glad you're feeling better. You're certainly looking brighter. Let's discuss it this afternoon when we meet.”
I walked away with a strong sense of unease. When I saw Gloria again, I told her I agreed â something didn't feel right. “I'd be less concerned if this were less sudden and if we had a better idea of what kicked off this most recent suicide attempt.”
Gloria pulled out Maria's chart. We went through it, not sure what we were looking for.
“Her weight's down,” I commented. “She came in at one-sixty. She's down to one fifty. Not extraordinary since she's stopped bingeing.”
“She look like one fifty to you?” Gloria asked. “I'd have
guessed one thirty-five.” Gloria pursed her lips and stared off in the direction of Maria's room.
guessed one thirty-five.” Gloria pursed her lips and stared off in the direction of Maria's room.
I checked the weekly lab reports. “Her fluid balance is off. The lytes are skewed. Not a lot. But some.”
“Shit.”
“Gloria, I've got a session scheduled with Maria in an hour. Can you check her weight before then? And while you're doing that, get someone to search the room for drugs â just to be on the safe side.”
When Gloria found me later, she was grim-faced. She handed me four blue plastic pouches. They were weights with Velcro fasteners, the kind joggers wrap around their arms or legs to give them an added challenge. “She was wearing these under her sweats when she got on the scale. Something else, too. I checked with housekeeping. Someone's been dropping food under the table at mealtimes. It's either Maria or someone sitting near her.”
“Any drugs in her room?”
“Nothing. But in the process, we did find something. A cell phone. Hidden inside an empty pitcher.”
“If that isn't the most bizarre. For a woman who keeps insisting that she has no friends, no relatives, nobody in the world who cares about her, who's she so concerned about staying in touch with?”
In my office, I set the weights on my desk and waited for Maria to arrive. The pouches together weighed easily ten pounds. That meant Maria was losing weight faster than was healthy. She couldn't be eating much. And the skew of her fluid balance suggested that she was making herself throw up the rest.
She arrived sullen. She flopped into a chair, slid down on her spine, and hugged her knees to her chest. “I want to go home,” she said, addressing the space between her knees, her jaw stiff and set.
“And we want you to go home. Just as soon as you're well enough.”
She looked at me through tears. “I am well,” she insisted.
When I didn't answer, she screamed it. “
I am well!
”
I am well!
”
“Ms. Whitson,” I started.
“What good are you, anyway?” she shouted. “You don't understand anything. This place is a snake pitl And you're no Dr. Baldridge! He explained what was going on. You ⦠you don't explain anything. Rules for this, rules for that, rules for everything. But you never tell me what the rules are!”
How quickly I'd gone from being the good Dr. Zak to the nasty Dr. Snake Pit. “Ms. Whitson, everyone here is trying to help you. But you have to help yourself, too. And right now, you're not.”
Maria stood up and walked over to the window. She ducked her head into the dormer and leaned her head against the glass.
“You're not eating. You're making yourself throw up.”
She scowled. “It's Gloria, isn't it? That wasn't my food she found under the table. Someone else threw it there. It's all crap anyway. You make us eat crap!”
“And,” I held up the plastic weights, “you're pretending that everything is fine.”
She started out gently tapping her head on the window, but it quickly escalated to banging as Maria sobbed, “Everything is fine. Everything is fine.”
I leaped up to grab her but not before her head connected one final time, accompanied by the sound of splintering glass. When I pulled her away, there was a small empty circle in the windowpane with a spiderweb of cracks radiating from it.
“Everything is
not
fine. And I think you know it.”
not
fine. And I think you know it.”
Maria struggled to get back to the window. Then she turned on me, her face white with rage, and shrieked, “You don't know anything, you bastard!” She scraped her stubby fingers harmlessly across my cheek. “You sonofabitch!” She kicked me in the leg.
Pain radiated up and down my shinbone. I backed away.
“Calm down and sit down, Ms. Whitson,” I ordered sternly. “If you don't, I'm going to call Security to restrain you.”
“Calm down and sit down, Ms. Whitson,” I ordered sternly. “If you don't, I'm going to call Security to restrain you.”
“What do you know about me?” Maria said, still yelling, taking a step toward me. “You don't understand the first thing about who I am. You think you do, but you don't get it at all.”
“Okay. Then help me. Help me to understand. You want to get on with your life. And I want you to. Let's help each other.”
Bright red blood oozed down Maria's forehead. She swiped her hand across her face and stared at the scarlet smear on her palm. “Oh God,” she sobbed. Maria put her hands onto her temples and sank down onto the floor. Crying and rocking, she whispered, “I'm such a mess. A fat, ugly, useless slug.”
I said nothing. The wound was bloody but it didn't look serious. I went back to my desk. I waited until the rocking stopped and she'd subsided into a heap. “This can't happen again, you know,” I said then. “I can't allow it. You could hurt yourself or someone else.” Maria stared down into her lap. “Let's talk about what you want.”
I waited.
Maria sniffed and looked at me defiantly. “I want to get out of this snake pit. That what's I want.”
“That makes two of us. Let's talk about the things you need to do to make that happen.”
I wouldn't continue until she agreed. Silence wasn't enough.
Finally, Maria muttered, “So?” I waited. “So, what do I have to do?”
“We're going to make a contract. I'm going to write down what you have to do, and you're going to agree. Then we're both going to sign. All right?”
Maria nodded and struggled to stand. Grudgingly, she took the hand I offered.
When she was seated again, I crouched beside her to check her forehead. There didn't appear to be any glass in the wound. I took a tissue from my desk and pressed it over the gash. “Hold
this until the bleeding stops.” Maria held the tissue in place. “And when you go back downstairs, have one of the nurses check it.”
this until the bleeding stops.” Maria held the tissue in place. “And when you go back downstairs, have one of the nurses check it.”
I returned to my chair and started to write. “First, you have to eat, really eat, three meals a day. No more dropping it on the floor. We'll be noticing.” Maria snuffled and watched as I wrote. “And second, no more throwing up after you're finished. We'll be checking your electrolytes and your weight every day to be sure you're not cheating. We'll have to put you on a fortified liquid or an IV if your weight doesn't stabilize.” Worried that she might retreat to her room after this, I added, “And I want you to participate in activities on the unit.”
I turned the paper around to face her and handed her a pen. While she stared at the three items I'd listed, I rubbed my shin where a tender lump was growing. It could as easily have been a knee to the groin. I was grateful for small favors.
As Maria signed her name, I wondered about that cell phone. She could make any calls she wanted. Keeping it hidden didn't make sense. On the other hand, one of the things that institutions like hospitals do is rob patients of their privacy. Maybe keeping the cell phone made Maria feel she still had something that was private, her own. And it seemed harmless enough.
THAT NIGHT, I dreamed that my phone was ringing. I picked it up but it kept ringing. I ran downstairs and tried picking up the extension in the living room, then the one in the kitchen. Then, with a logic that makes perfect sense in dreams, I found myself by the phone in the nurses' station on the unit. I picked up the phone there and the ringing stopped. I held the receiver to my ear and heard the muffled sound of a teapot whistling. I tried, but I couldn't pull the receiver away from the side of my face, the whistling growing louder and louder. I screamed, “Stop!” and was awakened by the sound of my own voice.
A moment later, my beeper went off. It was weird. The number flashing at me was the phone on the unit at the Pearce â the phone in the nurses' station.
I called. Kwan answered.
“There's been an accident,” he said.
“What happened?”
“Gloria's been hurt. She slipped and fell in Maria Whitson's room. An ambulance is on the way.”
“How's Maria?”
“Hysterical. She keeps insisting that it's her fault.”
I checked the clock. It was after three. “I'm coming in,” I said.
I got up, threw some cold water on my face, and pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. I was out on the porch locking my front door when my mother's door cracked open. “You're going out?” she asked. She seemed tinier than usual inside her pink quilted bathrobe.
“They beeped me. What are you doing up? You okay.”
“I'm up! That's how my nights are. I sleep a little. I'm up a little.”
“Go back to bed. You look very tired. Sure you're okay?”
“You get to be my age, you'll look tired, too.”
When I got to the Pearce, an ambulance, lights flashing and back doors flung open, was sitting at the back entrance to the unit. I parked on the access road and sprinted the rest of the way. The EMTs were carrying Gloria out on a stretcher. I trotted alongside. I wouldn't have admitted it but I was completely freaked out. Gloria looked ghastly. Her eyes were shut and her skin was white. Her forehead was loosely bandaged. Her beige cotton shirt was spattered with blood. I took her hand. It felt cool and clammy. Her eyelids fluttered. “Peter ⦔ she said.
“You okay?”
She got in a half nod before freezing, grimacing with pain. The terror I felt must have shown because she squeezed my hand and whispered, “I'm okay. Really, Peter. I'm going to be fine. Don't worry.”
“How did it happen?” I asked.
“Maria screamed. I went in. Must have slipped.” It looked like every word hurt.
“I get the picture,” I said.
Gloria closed her eyes and seemed to relax. I watched as they hoisted her into the ambulance and closed the doors. Silently, the ambulance pulled away and wound its way out of the complex.
I hurried inside, past the common area and down the hall to Maria Whitson's room. One of the night nurses was standing just outside the door. Inside, Kwan was crouched alongside Maria. She was on her hands and knees, rubbing at the floor with a wad of towels. What must have been blood had turned into pink smears. I started toward her but I couldn't go there. I gagged and backed away. I caught hold of the doorjamb and managed to keep my knees from buckling. The bloody scene in Kate's studio, a memory which I usually kept far in the recesses of my consciousness, came rushing forward.
I watched from what seemed like miles away. Maria was muttering the same thing, over and over. It sounded like her uncle's name â Nino. Then, “My fault. It's all my fault.” Tears were streaming down her face.
“Ms. Whitson,” Kwan said, taking hold of her hands gently, “you don't have to do this. We have a staff who can clean this up.”
She gave him a wide-eyed stare. Then she looked past him and saw me sagging against the door frame. She seemed to pull herself up. She held her hands up in front of her face and stared at her palms. “I must have had a nightmare. I woke up, scared, on the floor. I screamed. The blood ⦔
She seemed overwrought. In fact, over-overwrought. The strong smell of Lady Macbeth in the air brought me back to the present like a whiff of smelling salts.
“Head wounds can make a mess,” Kwan told her. “Gloria didn't lose consciousness, that's what counts.”
“I was so angry with her. She said I was faking it. You don't think I'm faking, do you?” She was talking to me.
I swallowed and got my voice. “She meant you were faking your weight. And pretending to eat when you were really throwing away your food. And you were, weren't you?” Maria looked down at the floor.
“Ms. Whitson, being angry with someone doesn't make them get hurt,” Kwan said.
I wondered if Maria believed him. For her, the line between feeling and reality was transparent and exceedingly permeable.
An orderly carrying a pail and mop squeezed past me into the room.
Kwan said to Maria, “Why don't you let Andrew here do this job and clean up.” He helped her to her feet. “Jane?” he said. The night nurse came over. “Can you help Ms. Whitson?”
I managed to follow Kwan out of the room.
“You okay?” he asked.
I nodded wearily. Of course I wasn't okay. That wasn't new. What was new was that for the first time, not being okay had affected my work. I closed my eyes and opened them again, but not before my mind played back the pool of blood on the floor of Kate's studio, the blood that was all that remained after they'd taken her body to the morgue.
“Go back to bed,” Kwan said. “Everything's under control here. Accidents happen.”
“You think Gloria's going to be okay?”
“Just a nasty bump. The hospital's a precaution. They'll probably keep her for twenty-four hours and then send her home.”
“Where were they taking her? Maybe I'll go â” I looked at my watch.
“Peter, there's not a thing you can do there but get in the way. Go home.”
I didn't want to go home. I wanted to stay and hit my morning routine with a vengeance. But it was quarter past four. Such a stupid time. Too early to stay at work. Too late to go back to sleep. And the days were getting shorter so fast that it wouldn't be light enough to row for hours.
I trudged back out to my car and drove home, trying not to let any more pictures replay themselves in my head. At home, I lay down on the couch in the living room. After an hour, I got up and made a pot of coffee.
At six-thirty, I called in. Maria was sound asleep. I made another
call and found out that Gloria's condition was “good.”
call and found out that Gloria's condition was “good.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. I could manage without my boat. I could fix the car. But the Pearce without Gloria was a prospect I didn't want to contemplate.
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