Cast a Pale Shadow (33 page)

It had only been when he drove around the circle drive to the front of this St. Vincent's, an almost identical twin to his hospital up north, that the misgivings overwhelmed him. The same black and white tiles paved the floor, the same green walls and over-waxed wood trim lined their path, the same marble statues with the same insipid smiles served as markers along the way. If Cole had not been so adamant and unyielding in his decision, he might have sensed Fitapaldi's foreboding or felt the same himself. How Fitapaldi regretted he hadn't followed his instincts and canceled the session.

It should have been so simple. He had used narcotherapy with dozens of patients, victims of traumatic neuroses, whose anxieties were lifted and who had experienced an almost immediate abatement of their symptoms. A slow injection of two to five tenths gram of sodium pentathol in a five to ten percent solution should have induced in Cole, as it had in those others he'd treated, the state of relaxation and serenity needed to bring to the surface his repressed memories and conflicts.

In this session, he had planned only to question Cole about his meeting with Bob Kirk, and he was so sure that Cole was not at fault in Kirk's subsequent death that he knew the facts uncovered would ease his anxieties about the matter. With that out of the way, there would be nothing to stop Trissa's effective, loving therapy from proceeding. He believed Trissa alone had the power to lead Cole out of the darkness and back into life. Fitapaldi had only to clear the path.

"I want to love her, Doctor. For the first time in my life, I want someone to love," Cole had said when he came to him with his plea for help. "When I'm with her, it is like I'm someone else. Not Cole. Not Nicholas either. But someone who's only whole when she's there to complete me. Is that love, do you think? I know so little about it."

"Yes. I think that is love."

"But you know how hopeless it is. I'm more than a little insane, and I remember only half a life, and I probably killed her father. A promising start for a young couple in love."

"You are no murderer, Cole. I am sure of that," he'd promised him.

And Fitapaldi had believed that so deeply that when the first jolt of the session struck him, he panicked and pulled back from his questions instead of pursuing them to resolution. As a doctor, he had broken the primary tenet of therapy and become too involved with his patient to be able to accept the revelation neutrally as he should have. Thus, he had failed Cole as dismally as all the others of his profession had ever failed him. How could he have been so wrong?

The tape spun to its end and Fitapaldi rewound and played it again, hoping he had somehow missed a key phrase that would make the nightmare stop. Cole's voice in flat, slowing cadence recited the numbers once more.

"Ninety-four, ninety-three, ninety, nine..."

"Are you feeling all right, Cole? Do you hear me?"

"I'm cold. See the goose bumps? I hear you."

"Will you answer my questions?"

"Fire away, Doc."

"What is your name?"

"Nicholas. Andrew. Brewer."

"Good. And when were you born?"

"July 28, 1937. A Depression baby. Another mouth to feed. Save a place in the soup line."

"Do you know where you were born?"

"Dayton, Ohio. Ohh-hii-ooo. It's very cold. My teeth are chattering. Is there a window open?"

"We'll get you a jacket." A pause, then, "There. Is that better?"

"A l-little."

"I want you to think back to just a short while ago, Nicholas, just two weeks ago. Can you remember back that far?"

"Far, far ago."

"Just two weeks. It was evening. Do you remember Bob Kirk?"

"The grave. Yes, the grave. Far, far ago. Once upon a time. The c-cold and l-lonely grave. So dark, forever dark."

"No, Nicholas, I want you to remember before that, before the cemetery. The night you--"

"The night there was no morning. And Cynthia is in the dark. As c-c-cold as I am. I'm sh-shivering. Is it right to b-be so c-cold?"

"Do you want to stop the session, Nicholas? Nurse, get me some blankets."

"No g-good. N-no good. I wrapped her in the quilt. B-but it was no good. Cynthia, my sleeping princess. Awake. Aw-wake t-to me. D-down, down in the d-deep, cold grave. Take me. G-god, Cy-cynthia, take me with you!"

"You can leave this memory now. Come back to just two weeks ago. There is no Cynthia in this memory of two weeks ago."

"No, there is no Cynthia an-anymore. 'Til death do us p-part, Cynthia. But it was not s-supposed to part us. Why couldn't you t-take me with you?"

"It's all right, Nicholas. We are stopping now. You don't have to remember anymore. Look, here are the blankets. We will let you sleep, now."

Fitapaldi snapped off the tape recorder and buried his face in his hands. Cynthia. He remembered Cynthia from the stack of pictures Cole had brought with him to the session, hoping they would stir a memory. Cynthia with the large, dark eyes, alert and luminous as a sparrow's in her thin, triangular face. Cynthia, smiling, with wisps of hair sticking out of the kerchief she had tied behind her head like a Russian peasant.
"If we only had forever, Nicholas. Love, Cynthia,"
she had scrawled on the back of one of the photos.

When, with tortured effort, Fitapaldi succeeded in clearing his mind of Cynthia, the memory of Cole took her place, shivering violently in the jacket, under the blanket, mumbling about the grave, the dark and lonely grave until the second injection he had given him had finally taken effect and he had sunk into deep sleep. He slept still, on the bed in the treatment room next door, while Fitapaldi sat and pondered his mistakes and wondered what to do. He had been so sure Cole was not a murderer, that Nicholas could not do what Cole would not have done. How could he have been so wrong?

Several hours later, when he had yet to think of any solutions and Cole faced him expectantly across the desk, Fitapaldi fell back on his training to carry him through the second part of the therapy. Perhaps there was an explanation buried as deeply as the memory. Perhaps if he slashed deep enough he would find it.

"Do you remember these photographs, Cole?'

"Yes, Trissa showed them to me several times."

"But do you remember this girl?" he held out the doe-eyed girl with the scarf. "Do you know where she is now?"

"No. She is one of Nicholas's girls. He collected them."

"And you never met her yourself?"

"No."

"Did you ever meet any of Nicholas's girls?"

"Other than Trissa? Yes, one."

"Can you show me that one?"

Cole spread the photos in a fan on the desk. "This one."

"Jane Simmons?"

"That's what the back says."

"What happened to her? Do you know?"

Cole's face clouded. "Yes."

"Can you tell me?"

"What does this have to do with me now? What does it have to do with our session?"

"You don't want to tell me?"

"I'm not proud of it."

"Not proud?"

Cole shoved his hands in his pocket and stretched his legs out in front of him, pretending a casualness that was denied by the rigid lock on his knees and the grim line of his jaw. "I got rid of her."

"How do you mean?"

He shrugged, as if it meant nothing. "I was cruel to her."

"You hurt her?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"I screamed at her. I called her names. I called her a fat, stupid cow. I threw her clothes out into the street."

"I see."

Yanking his legs back, Cole sat upright, his hands out in the open again, gripping the arms of the chair. "Wait a minute. How did you think? Did you think I hit her? God, it was bad enough what I did. She cried. She pounded on the door, crying. She sat on the front steps, crying. I couldn't stand it. I went out to her and apologized. But I wouldn't let her back in. I gave her some money and took her to a motel. I told her she could have the apartment in the morning, that she was better off without me. I would be gone by then. And I was."

"Did you treat them all like that?"

"I told you. I don't remember them all."

"What about this one? Doreen?" The pictures of Doreen were more primitive, no more than blown-up snapshots, the kind a child might take with a point and click camera. They did not belong with the rest, strictly amateur.

"No."

"She was in the mental hospital with you."

"I was never in a mental hospital, except as a visitor. You know that."

"Cole, you spent five years of your life in mental hospitals. Even you know that."

Cole turned his face to the window. "That was Nicholas."

"Stop it, Cole."

The sunlight through the blinds cast a shadow of stripes across Cole's face, a shaft of it struck his eyes making them glint steely bright. "Stop what?"

"Assigning your bad memories to Nicholas. Do you remember Doreen?"

His voice lowered a register. "No."

"She killed herself."

"I don't remember."

"You were there when it happened. You screamed through the night when it happened."

"I don't remember." He turned his attention back to Fitapaldi, the crease between his eyebrows deep and hard, but his voice was dull and emotionless, resigned, defeated. "Why are you doing this? What did I say on that tape? I killed him, didn't I? You are just trying to get proof of my insanity, aren't you? You want to drive me over the edge, don't you? It's all right. It's what I want."

Only the slight tremble of his hand as he raised it to rub his temple betrayed him. "If -- If I can't have her... If I can't have Trissa, I'd just as soon be mad, stark, raving mad. Psychiatry created this monster you see before you. It is your duty to destroy it. Or -- or send me to Duncan. He'll do the job for you. He's so damned good at it."

"Doreen. Do you remember Doreen?"

"Yes! Yes, it is our memory, Nicholas's and mine."

"They're all your memories, the memories of both in the one."

Cole closed his eyes. "She loved me. She wouldn't call it that, but it was love just the same. And I should have -- I should have known. I should have saved her. She was like an angel in the snow, a shattered angel."

"You were fifteen, Cole. How could you have known?"

"I should have."

"You've had enough for today."

Startled by the abrupt end of the interview, Cole shook his head and leaned forward. "Did I kill him?"

"I don't know."

"Play the tape."

"I don't think it is a good idea."

"Play the tape. How much worse could it be?"

"Worse."

Cole held his hand out flat in front of him, and when, after a moment's concentration, it stopped shaking, he nodded. "I'm ready for it. See? May I smoke?" Without waiting for an answer and before it could start shaking again, he plunged his hand in his pocket to search for his pack of cigarettes.

"I've never seen you smoke before."

"He smokes. Nicholas. It's his bad habit, but it sometimes gets the best of me. It's not allowed in here, is it?"

"No."

Cole twisted the pack and tossed it in the waste can. "Play it."

Fitapaldi started the tape. As it played, Cole paced the floor. When it ended, he raked his hands through his hair then shoved them in his pockets. "Thank you for your effort, Doctor. I asked for cure or destroy. I can't quibble with the outcome. It's very clear what I must do now."

"Cole, stay here tonight. The effect of the drug could last up to seventy hours. Take the time to let your head clear before you make any unalterable decisions."

"The decisions were made long ago." Cole took the tape from the machine and shoved it in his pocket.

"Cole."

"Yes."

"Do you remember Cynthia?"

"Yes." Cole slumped in the chair, his fist clenched in the center of his chest. "When we were at the cemetery, it was Trissa's face I saw in the grave, not Cynthia's. I thought it was a hallucination. Not a memory. Do we call the police and have them come for me?"

"We should work this through first. It is only a partial memory at this point. The drugs, your emotional state, even my questions, I'm afraid I botched them badly -- all these things could have influenced your thought patterns."

"You can't blame the questions when you don't like the answers, Doctor." Cole took a deep breath and rose from the chair. "I believe it would be more dignified if I go to the station. Will you drive me?"

"Do you remember killing Bob Kirk?"

"They are looking for someone who buries his victims then forgets them." He tapped the pocket with the tape cassette. "I believe that is my pattern. Shall we go?"

*****

Cole saw Henry Chancellor in his office plucking index cards off a bulletin board labeled Person or Persons Unknown.

The detective who had admitted them to the outer office called out, "Hey, Chancellor, someone here for you."

Chancellor's head whipped round, then jerked back, a double take that would have put Ray Romano to shame. "Brewer! What the hell? And hand in hand with your psychiatrist? What goes here?"

"I've come to turn myself in."

"For what? Bizarre behavior at a funeral? Living in sin with your sweetie? Scoot along home and make your confessions to your shrink. I got more important things on my mind."

"Living in sin?" Brewer repeated, looking a bit muddled by the phrase. "No. No, I'm here about Bob Kirk's murder."

"Yeah? What about it? Have you dredged some memory from that fogbound brain of yours? Let's have it." He reached for a blank index card and his felt tip pen to record the information. "I'll add it to the stack."

"I did it. I killed him."

"What?" A blob of ink oozed onto the card. Chancellor ripped it in half and reached for another

"I murdered Bob Kirk."

"I see." Popping the top back on his pen and tossing it in the side drawer, he rooted for a sharpened pencil stub in the clutter. "And could you describe how the hell that happened? Was that before or after he beat you to a bloody pulp?" He abandoned his search for a functional pencil and stood. "Just a second, let me get a scribe over here. You sure you don't want to have a lawyer here with you, or does this shrink of yours double as a shyster?"