Regina's Song (14 page)

“That’s
awful
!” Erika exclaimed, but then she laughed a wicked little laugh. “What did they do?”

“What
could
they do?” Charlie demanded. “If they made
too
big a fuss about it, word would get out, and everybody who was having a beef with any company that used computers could wipe the company out anytime he wanted to. The computer age almost got derailed right there in its infancy.”

“How did it all turn out?” Twink asked.

“Well, the engineer got to talk to whole battalions of live human beings for a starter,” Charlie replied, “and they were all terribly polite, for some reason. As it turned out, he got about five years of free insurance, and all he had to do to get it was to promise that he’d never do that again and never tell anybody else how to do it.”

“The original computer virus,” James noted.

“That it was,” Charlie agreed. “A computer that’s just been turned into a
tabula rasa
isn’t worth very much.”

“I haven’t heard that term in years,” James said.

“The old ones are the best,” Charlie replied.

After dinner, Sylvia took Twink off to her room, and it was almost midnight before they decided to call it a day. I was camped out in the living room with Milton when they came down the hall.

“Good night, Markie,” Twink said.

“What did you have planned?” I asked her.

“I thought I’d go home.”

“Not by yourself, you won’t,” I said flatly. “I’ll drive you back to Mary’s place.”

“And leave my bike here? Not hardly.”

“You’re not going out by yourself, Twinkie. There’s a nut running around out there with a knife.”

“Oh, poo.”

“You can ‘poo’ all you want, Twink, but you’re
not
going anyplace alone. I’ll borrow Charlie’s truck and deliver you and your bike to your Aunt Mary’s front door.”

“You’re being silly, Markie.”

“Humor me. I’m bigger than you are, Twink, so we’ll do this my way.”

“He
does
have a point, Renata,” Sylvia stepped in. “It’s sort of dangerous out there after dark.”

“Oh, all right.” Twink gave up. “I still think it’s silly, though.”

“Let’s not take any chances. Stay put. I’ll be right back.” I went upstairs, borrowed Charlie’s keys, and came back down. It only took a couple of minutes to load the bicycle into the back of Charlie’s truck, then Twink and I got in and took off.

“What’s got you all burly and protective, Markie?” she asked, as I drove us through the rainy, empty streets.

“It’s my job, Twink. I’m supposed to look out for you. You might as well get used to it.”

“You’re as bad as Les.”

“Exactly. I thought you knew that already.”

“You really care, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. I’ve been looking after you since you were in diapers, and I don’t plan to change.”

“That’s sweet.”

“Don’t get gushy about it, kid. Everybody has responsibilities. You’re one of mine. Sometimes you’re a pain in the neck, but that doesn’t make any difference. Have we got that straight?”

“Yes, Master. Yes, Master.”

“Oh, quit.”

Sylvia was still up when I got back. “That’s the
strongest
person I’ve ever met, Mark,” she said. “No sooner do I think I’ve got her pegged and identified than she comes up with something new and different. One day I think she’s manic-depressive, and the next day I’m positive that I’m looking at a classic multiple personality disorder. She changes so fast that I can’t keep up with her.”

“That’s why she’s so much fun, Sylvia. You never know what she’ll do next. Life’s isn’t boring when Twink’s around.”

“I’ve got reams of things I want to take up with Dr. Fallon.”

“That’s why we recruited you, Toots. Fallon knows that I’m no specialist. We need a resident expert to do interpretations for us—like, what the hell is ‘multiple personality disorder’?”

“Go to a video store and rent
The Three Faces of Eve
,” she suggested. “Hollywood doesn’t get
too
many things right, but that one hit the nail right on the head. There are a few people out there who aren’t single individuals. They’re two—or three—or even a dozen—totally separate and different people, and sometimes they aren’t even aware of the others. Jane doesn’t know that Suzy exists, and Mabel’s never heard of Barbara. They have different sets of friends, different interests, and sometimes even different apartments.”

“I think you’re pushing that one just a bit, babe. Twink’s problem goes back to Regina’s murder, and there’s a good chance that she’ll never really face it. I say, if she can function, let’s leave her alone. As the saying goes, ‘if it ain’t busted, don’t fix it.’ ”

“Don’t get complacent, Mark,” she told me. “You
did
know that she had another ‘bad day’ yesterday, didn’t you?”

“She
did
? This is the first I’ve heard about it.”

“Mary told me when I called this afternoon. She says she tried to call us, but we were all gone before she got Renata settled. Renata mentioned it too, this afternoon, but she didn’t really want to talk about it, so I just let it pass.”

I shrugged. “It’s been quite a while since her last one,” I said. “There’s probably some sort of sequence involved—thirteen days normie and then one day bonkers. If things are going the way they’re supposed to, the normie periods will get longer and longer, and the bonkers days will get further and further apart.”

“We can always hope, I guess.” Sylvia sounded dubious, though.

Right after breakfast on Saturday, James and I shooed everybody out of the kitchen and started prying off the baseboards and door moldings in preparation for putting down the new floor tiles.

“Couldn’t we just butt the tiles up against the baseboards?” James asked me.

I shook my head. “You always get gaps if you do it that way, and those gaps fill up with gunk every time somebody mops the floor. It starts to get fragrant after a while, and we
do
eat in here.”

“Ah,” he said. “I knew there had to be a reason for it.”

“That’s not the
only
reason, pard. I’m not all that great with a linoleum knife, and sometimes the edges I leave are kind of ragged. When we nail the baseboards back in place, they’ll cover a multitude of sins. Perfection’s in the eye of the beholder. You and I may know about these little goofs, but nobody else will.”

“I may ponder that all day.”

“Just don’t tell anybody else about it, OK?”

We started on one side and worked our way across the floor. The guy who’d come up with “peel and stick” tiles had made life a lot more pleasant for people who did floors. If you get the first row good and square, you can cover a lot of floor in a hurry. It’s a piece of cake—right up until you come to the far wall. That’s usually when the swearing starts. Measurements get crucial at that point, and older houses are almost never exactly plumb and square. Houses settle after a few years. The doors start to stick, and the floors sag and buckle. Gravity’s nice, I suppose, but it sure makes laying tile a bear.

My new linoleum knife gave me a lot of help at that stage. You really want a good sharp point when you get down to detailed cutting.

“That’s one ugly implement,” James observed. “I wouldn’t want to have to carve a turkey with
that
thing.”

“It wasn’t built for carving, James,” I told him. “The point’s all that matters. If you get a good clean cut on the first pass, you’re home free. That’s why the handle’s so beefy. You’ve got to lean into it to get through the vinyl. Things start to go to hell if you have to make more than one pass—and you’ve got to be careful with the silly thing. It’ll slice skin even faster than vinyl, and it cuts long, wide, and deep. One little mistake earns you a quick trip to the emergency room. It usually gives you nice straight scars, though.”

“I’ll leave the cutting to you, old buddy,” he told me. “I don’t want to go anywhere near that thing.” He glanced at his watch and looked around at our floor. “We might even finish up today,” he said.

“That depends on how much trouble we have with the doorframes,” I corrected. “
That’s
the part I dread. A guy can spend more time cutting and fitting around the doorframes than he will on all the rest of the floor. Why don’t you go tell Trish that we’d better send out for pizza or something this evening. You and I might be at this until midnight. We’d
better
finish up today, though, if we can. I’m only good for about one day on my knees like this—and if we tie up the kitchen for
too
long, we’ll have some very grumpy ladies to deal with.”

“You’re probably right,” he agreed. “I’ll go talk with Trish.” He looked at our new floor. “It
does
look nice, Mark. The girls might complain a bit, but I think they’ll be very happy with what you’ve done today.”

“I hope so. I sure wouldn’t want to have to do it again. Revision’s OK when it comes to essays, but it’s a real pain when you’re talking about a floor.”

CHAPTER TEN

Twink had been making noises about wanting to go to church on Sunday. When I finally admitted that we couldn’t finish up with the floor tiles on Saturday night, Sylvia volunteered to fill in for me so that James and I could finish up in the morning. Getting that kitchen back on-line was the number one priority at the boardinghouse.

Bright and early Sunday morning, James and I fixed a couple of rough spots, and put the door moldings and baseboards back in place. Then we picked up all the scraps, put my tools away, and swabbed the new floor with a damp mop. “Looks good to me,” James said, as we gave it that last look-see.

“It’ll do,” I agreed. “There’s a couple of boo-boos, but they’re not too visible. Shall we show it off?”

“Might as well,” James agreed. He leaned out into the hallway and called to Trish and Erika.

“It’s beautiful!” Trish exclaimed, when the two of them looked in.

“It’s just a floor, Trish,” I told her. “It’s not exactly a work of art.”

“Don’t bad-mouth it, Mark,” Erika told me. “It makes the whole kitchen look bigger and brighter. You guys do nice work.”

“Very nice,” Trish agreed. “Can we walk on it? I mean, do we have to give it time to dry or anything?”

“It’s all ready to go, babe. The kitchen’s yours again.” I gave it a critical inspection. “It does look better, I guess. Of course the old one was pretty grubby. Did Sylvia happen to tell you when she’ll be coming back? Sunday’s usually my day to keep Twink away from Mary’s place to give the poor lady time to catch up on her sleep. I’ve worked graveyard shift a few times myself, and it starts to wear you down after a while.”

“Sylvia wasn’t too specific,” Erika replied, “but I think she plans to spend the day with Renata. They get along pretty well, but I think Sylvia’s got some ulterior motives. She’s been talking about a case history sort of thing—and maybe even a subject for her master’s thesis.”

“Oh?”

“Renata fascinates her. She knows that the poor kid’s got serious problems, and she wants to see if she can put a name to them.”

“She hasn’t said anything to me about it.”

“She wouldn’t, Mark,” James told me. “You’re Renata’s semiofficial keeper, and Sylvia’s probably trying to sneak around behind you.”

“Oh, that’s just dandy,” I said sourly. “Now I’ve got something else to worry about.”

“Sylvia isn’t going to hurt Renata, Mark,” Trish assured me. “Abnormals are her specialty, so she knows what she’s doing.”

“Nobody knows for sure what’s keeping Twink afloat, Trish, not even Dr. Fallon. I think Sylvia and I’d better have a talk about this before she goes too much further.”

Sylvia didn’t get in until late, though, and the house rules sort of prohibited any conferences between the upstairs people and the downstairs folks after ten o’clock.

She was still all fired up about her “case history” notion at breakfast Monday morning.

“Most of the time an interview with a mental patient only produces grunts and mumbles,” she told us, “but Renata can think and she can talk. She can describe not only her own behavior, but the peculiarities of her fellow patients as well. She could be an absolute gold mine of information about various mental states, ranging through all the standard ones and on up into ones that don’t even have names yet.”

I decided right then to step in before she went too much further. “Have you got anything on the fire for tomorrow evening, Sylvia?” I asked her.

“What did you have in mind?” she asked archly.

“Behave yourself,” I scolded. “I think maybe we should bounce this off Dr. Fallon before you go much further with this case history of yours. Twink’s still pretty fragile, so you’d probably better have a set of ground rules to go by. There are some things you don’t talk about, and certain questions you don’t ask.”

“I know what I’m doing, Mark,” she told me in a blunt sort of way. “I’m not going to damage your precious Twinkie.”

“We don’t seem to be talking on the same wavelength here, Toots,” I said flatly. “Let me put it to you right straight out. I can have Renata all packed up and out of Seattle in about two hours, and I can arrange things so that you won’t be able to find her. I won’t like it much, but I’ll do it if I have to. We go see Fallon so that you can get instructions, or I’ll pull the plug on your little project. We are going to do things my way, because I’m the guy with the ‘on-off’ switch. Do you read me?”

“Whoo,” Erika said. “This one’s a tiger, isn’t he?”

Sylvia was glaring at me, and she seemed right on the verge of exploding.

“Let’s back away from these ultimatums and declarations of war, shall we?” James stepped in smoothly. “Do you have any objections about this meeting with Dr. Fallon, Sylvia?”

“Of course not,” she snapped, “but I don’t need to have people who don’t know what they’re talking about trying to tell me how I should handle things in my field.”

“I’m not trying to tell you what to do, Sylvia,” I said, backing away a little. “All I’m saying is that Dr. Fallon is the real expert, and he can give you a crash course in how to approach Twink without putting her into meltdown. We both lose if she goes bonkers again.”

“I don’t object to a meeting with Dr. Fallon, Mark,” she told me in a more reasonable tone. “Hurting Renata—even by accident—is the last thing I want. Don’t issue commands and ultimatums like that, though. I can be just as bad-tempered as you can.”

“No kidding,” I said wryly. Then I grinned at her. “Peace?” I offered.

“If you promise to behave.”

“Sure.”

“All right, then,” she agreed with a bright smile, “peace it is.” Then she laughed a bit ruefully. “We weren’t really getting anywhere with all the yelling and waving our arms around anyway, were we?”

“Not so’s you’d notice it.”

After my Milton seminar that morning I went back to the house to call Dr. Fallon.

“Is Renata all right?” he asked as soon as he answered.

“She seems fine, Doc,” I told him. “Missing her session with you on Friday didn’t upset her. I’m calling because I think you should talk with abnormal Sylvia. She’s the one I told you about—the girl who’s majoring in weirdos. She wants to do one of those case history things on Twink, and I thought you might want to kick it around with her. Sylvia’s sharp, but it might be a good idea to keep a tight rein on her until we’re sure she knows what she’s doing. A few rounds of ‘do this, but don’t do that’ before we let her jump in?”

“You’ve got that right,” he agreed.

“If you aren’t going to be busy tomorrow evening, I thought I might bring her up so that you can talk it over with her. Telephones are all right, I guess, but sometimes things should be handled face-to-face.”

“Good point,” he agreed. “How about seven-thirty?”

“No problem, Doc. We’ll see you then.”

Tuesday was a light day for me. It seems to turn out that way in grad school. Tuesdays and Thursdays are usually devoted to research, and Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are class days.

Sylvia was edgy while we waited for the five o’clock rush to subside, and she’d even gone so far as to put on a suit, for God’s sake. I decided not to make an issue of that. She kept pacing back and forth, and I thought we ought to get started before her spring got wound too much tighter. “Let’s hit the bricks, babe,” I suggested about quarter to six.

“I thought you’d never ask,” she replied.

We took Interstate 5 north toward Everett. It was raining, naturally. It’s always raining in Puget Sound country. It’s one of the few places in the country where you have to mow your lawn three times a week in the summer.

The traffic had thinned a bit when we took the Snohomish turnoff and went east across the flats.

“That’s moderately depressing,” Sylvia noted as we went over the soggy marshland around Ebey Slough. “How much farther is the sanitarium?”

“Five or six miles. It’s sort of secluded, and there aren’t any big signs pointing the way. The neighbors probably wouldn’t like that very much. A bughouse isn’t exactly what you’d call a tourist attraction.”

We took a left at Cavalero’s Corner and started up the steep hill toward Lake Stevens. It wasn’t too long before we came to the turnoff. I followed the long driveway, drove in through the gate, and parked in the courtyard.

“Impressive,” Sylvia said. “It’s sort of spread out, isn’t it?”

“Land isn’t too expensive here,” I told her, “and Dr. Fallon keeps the place low-key. A tall building out here in the boonies might attract attention. Let’s go see the man, Sylvia.”

“Oh, dear,” she faltered.

“Don’t get uptight, babe. Doc Fallon isn’t hard to get along with. We’re all on the same side here, so he probably won’t bite.”

Inside, the lady at the front desk knew me, and waved us through. I led the way along the hall and knocked loudly on Fallon’s door, “It’s only me, Doc,” I called. “Don’t shoot.”

Sylvia gave me a startled look.

“Inside joke,” I told her.

“Come in, Mark,” Fallon answered.

I opened the door, and Sylvia and I went on in. Fallon looked slightly startled when he saw Sylvia for the first time. “She’s small, but she’s wiry, Doc,” I told him. “This is Sylvia Cardinale, the lady who wants to major in Twinkie.”

“Has he always been like this, Dr. Fallon?” Sylvia asked. “Or is this some recent aberration?”

“Be nice,” I murmured. “This, of course, is Dr. Fallon, the resident Twinkie expert.”

“I’m honored, Dr. Fallon,” Sylvia said.

“Please,” he replied, smiling at her. “Have a seat, Miss Cardinale. Mark tells me that you’d like to put together a case history on Renata Greenleaf, with a possible eye on expanding it into your Master’s thesis.”

“That might depend on how the case history turns out, Dr. Fallon,” she replied. “To be honest with you, Renata has me baffled. Sometimes, I’m positive that she’s manic-depressive, and other times, I suspect multiple personality disorder. She changes so fast sometimes.”

“Those broad labels don’t always fit the individual cases,” he told her. “Over the years I’ve found that most patients are unique. They might lean in the direction of one category or another, but they almost always have personal idiosyncrasies. Renata’s case derives from trauma, and that always complicates matters.”

“I’ve noticed,” Sylvia agreed wryly.

“I thought you might have. How much has Mark told you about the incident that brought her here in the first place?”

Sylvia recited the bare facts of Renata’s case, while Fallon nodded approval. Encouraged, she started to review her own observations. “She mentions ‘loneliness’ fairly often, and I suspect that her sense of loneliness might be symptomatic. At the deepest level of her consciousness, she’s vaguely aware that something or somebody is missing.”

“Excellent,” Fallon said approvingly. “A lot of people would have missed that. From a certain perspective, half of Renata isn’t there anymore. Her amnesia has blocked out all memory of Regina, but there’s a nagging sense of vacancy—a loneliness for something she can’t even remember. I’m sure you can see the significance of that.”

“Oh, yes,” Sylvia agreed, “and now I see why Mark was so concerned about my ‘case history.’ Some of the so-called experts in the field seem to believe in the blunt object approach to therapy. If some half-wit decided to hit Renata over the head with Regina’s death, all he’d succeed in doing would be to put her back into a straitjacket.”

“Miss Cardinale seems to be a fortunate find, Mark,” Fallon said. “Don’t let her get away.”

“And she’s cute, too,” I added.

“You aren’t supposed to notice that, Mark,” Sylvia scolded.

“Pretend you didn’t notice my noticing,” I replied.

Sylvia grinned as she turned back to Dr. Fallon. “I was talking with Renata last week,” she said, “and something came up. You did know that she has a strong objection to notebooks, didn’t you? She as much as admitted that as soon as she sees somebody taking notes, she starts making up wild stories to hide her real feelings.”

Dr. Fallon nodded. “It’s cropped up before. Renata could probably send poor Dr. Freud right up the wall. Those of us in the field reach for notebooks almost automatically, and as soon as Renata sees a notebook, she does her best to avoid the truth.”

“That’s not going to make my case history any easier,” she complained.

“Why don’t we talk with Charlie?” I mused. “I’m sure he’ll be able to come up with a way to plant a bug.”

“I’m sure he could,” she said. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“The great thing about a planted bug would be that it’ll catch every word,” I added, “along with inflections and other things that might reveal anything Twink’s trying to hide. Notes aren’t always that accurate, but a tape gets it all. What’s even better, maybe, is that Sylvia can run off copies for you, Doc. You’ll know exactly what’s going on.” Then I laughed. “This is all starting to sound like a James Bond movie, isn’t it?”

“Whatever works, Mark,” Fallon said. “I think this might be very useful. To be honest with you, Miss Cardinale, I had my doubts about this whole idea. The notion of taped conversations puts a whole new light on it, though. Let’s try it and see what happens.”

Sylvia was elated when we went out to my car. “I owe you one, Mark,” she told me. “Dr. Fallon really bought into this idea when you came up with the notion of taping my conversations with Renata. Your ‘let’s plant a bug’ suggestion brought him around.”

She frowned as we drove on out of the courtyard. “There might still be a problem, though.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“I’ll have to make sure that Renata and I always have our little discussions in the vicinity of Charlie’s microphone.”

“Where have you been for the past several years, Sylvia?” I asked her. “Charlie’s right on top of all the latest technology, and the FBI’s been planting bugs in people’s underwear for a long time.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” she admitted. “Hers or mine?”

I wasn’t going to touch that one—either way!

It was about ten-thirty when we got back to the boardinghouse, and I went upstairs to consult Charlie about making secret recordings.

“Piece of cake,” he told me. “You’d better clear it with Trish, though.”