The Ripper Gene (12 page)

As he spoke, I found my mind wandering. I hadn’t seen any real evidence of her mental instability when we’d dated. Or had I? Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure. But I knew from my training that people could hide mental ailments for years or even decades, in some cases. Anything was possible.

“Okay,” I said as he concluded his overview. “What’s the bottom line, Doc? What’s going on with Mara? In layman’s terms, if you don’t mind.”

Kinsey peered at the computer screen. “Her official diagnosis, in my opinion, is atypical dissociative identity disorder. ‘Atypical’ because she doesn’t possess other wholly different personalities. She’s not your stereotypical sufferer. You know, Susan, Jane, Jimmy, Little Harry, and Betty all rolled into one. All of Mara’s personalities are what I would call ‘Maras,’ but they’re so disparate and unaware of each other that dissociative identity disorder is the only classification that makes any sense in her case. She doesn’t, quite simply, know which version of herself she is at any given time.”

I pressed him further. “So if that’s the case, then how does that explain why she thought I kidnapped and raped her in her grandmother’s basement?”

Kinsey sighed. “Well, as you know, Mara’s incredibly intelligent and capable of pulling the wool over anyone’s eyes. While I can give you my utmost honest opinion, that caveat will always remain. I do sometimes get the feeling that if this is how Mara wanted me to diagnose her, then she could probably pull it off. But in my professional opinion, I don’t believe she’s malingering here, Dr. Madden.”

“But after all the psychoanalysis, you still aren’t one hundred percent sure?”

“I’m never one hundred percent sure about anything.”

“So you think the dissociative identity disorder is why she can believe that I took her into that basement?”

“No.” He leaned back in his chair. “My honest opinion? I think that was simple self-preservation. I think Mara projected you onto the identity of her true abductor in that house in New Hope. Why, you may ask? Because it helped her cope with the rape and the kidnapping that occurred there.”

He paused, then ventured the next bit of information cautiously. “Mara actually confided to me in our first interview after this episode that she wasn’t even raped. In fact, she insisted that she had simply made love to you during her abduction.”

“What?”

“Well, if you think about it, it makes sense. If she reconstructs her ordeal in the basement as a consensual sexual encounter, rather than being forced into an unwanted sex act over and over, then she can convince herself that she never lost control of the situation. Certainly the opposite of what really happened in that basement, a situation in which she became completely powerless at the hand of the perpetrator.”

Kinsey’s words rang undeniably true, and I finally began to understand one possible explanation for Mara’s rationale for claiming I’d abducted her. If there was one thing Mara always wanted, it was to be in control of every situation.

To my side, Woodson spoke up. “Dr. Kinsey, did Mara ever mention anything about what the killer looked like? Anything outstanding about him?”

Kinsey mulled over the question a moment, then flicked away on his keyboard and peered at the computer screen once again. “I don’t see anything in my notes, although I’m not sure I would have caught it in our sessions.” He looked up. “I don’t recall her mentioning anything specific about her abductor, though. From what she’s told me, he crept up behind her, knocked her out with something, something a lot more powerful than chloroform, and the next thing she knew she was imprisoned in a basement.”

“Does Mara ever speak of her childhood?”

Kinsey seemed slightly surprised at Woodson’s question, but nodded. “Yes. Not often, but sometimes.” He looked in my direction. “I understand you were in it.”

“Small world.”

Kinsey eyed me before redirecting his answer to Woodson, as if weighing whether he should say something to us or not. “Funny you ask, actually. I do think there’s something in her childhood that haunts her, but I haven’t been able to broach it with her yet. She has a curious love–hate relationship with her father. When her guard is down, she speaks of him fondly. But when different masks are on, she despises him. Something happened in her past that I haven’t been able to uncover. She swears up and down that her father wasn’t abusive, so I’m at a loss until Mara decides to elaborate.” He stopped, then seemed to have a sudden idea. “Do you happen to know of anything, Dr. Madden?”

“Sorry. No clue.”

Kinsey shrugged. “Then maybe it really isn’t anything important. But Mara certainly hasn’t been willing to revisit her childhood with me in any great detail yet, that’s for certain.”

I nodded and thought for a moment of Mara’s father, Charlie, and wondered if Kinsey might be right. Maybe Charlie could shed additional light on Mara’s current fragile state in adulthood. I glanced at Kinsey, who in turn looked at the clock. He was clearly ready to get on with his day.

“Well, Dr. Kinsey. Thank you for meeting with us. Do you think we can meet with Mara now?”

“We can try.” Kinsey stood and walked to his office door, then turned back to us before opening it. “I’ll check with her now. Again, if she’s ready to talk to you, I’ll allow you to see her. Under supervision. If not, I’m afraid you can’t interview her just yet. It’s completely up to her.”

“Understood.”

With that he nodded politely and left, closing the door. I leaned toward Woodson, still keeping my voice low. “Let’s hope Mara is up to this. If not, we’re at a dead end.”

Woodson looked toward the office door. “So what do you think of the good doctor?”

I shrugged. “He seems okay. He seems to be concerned for Mara. He has a pretty solid bullshit meter, too. I like that in a person.”

Woodson smiled. “You know what they say. Can’t bullshit a bullshitter, right? I’m surprised he’s letting you anywhere near her at this point, though.”

“Me too.”

“Just better make sure she doesn’t have a knife on her when he brings her up,” Woodson said.

The icy finger of fear suddenly stabbing my chest surprised me, as I recalled my last interaction with Mara in her grandmother’s basement.

When I looked up at Woodson she was still smiling at her joke. The cold-dread sensation vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared.

A few moments later the door to the office opened and Kinsey walked in. “Good news. Mara agrees to see you. She assures me that she understands that you weren’t her abductor, and she’s expressed a great deal of remorse for the incident, in fact. Given these developments in her psychological state, I’m comfortable allowing her to speak with you, as long as you both promise to simply ask questions related to your investigation.”

“You have our word, Doctor.”

“Good, then. Follow me.”

Woodson and I followed Kinsey and an accompanying orderly down the hallway and through a twisting series of wings and stairwells. I couldn’t believe that I was getting a chance to interview Mara. We finally arrived at a nondescript door. “This is the interview room,” Kinsey said. “Go inside with Martin here, and I’ll bring Mara into the other side. If everything goes well, I’ll step away and leave you to your interview. Martin will be in the room at all times. And I’ll be watching everything from behind the one-way mirror.”

“That’s fine, Dr. Kinsey. Much appreciated.”

Kinsey put forth his hand. A Rolex watch slipped out from beneath a shirt cuff held together by an expensive monogrammed cuff link, everything a reminder of how drastically our respective chosen career paths had diverged after medical school. I shook his hand and looked up from his wrist quickly as he spoke.

“It was nice meeting you both. Good luck in your investigation.” With that Kinsey excused himself, and told us he’d return momentarily with our interviewee.

We bade him farewell, and I tried mightily to prepare myself to come face-to-face with Mara Bliss for the first time since she’d tried to kill me.

FIFTEEN

The small interview room reminded me of a prison visitation area. Woodson and I sat in folding metal chairs and waited while staring through a glass partition into the opposite room.

The silent orderly, Martin, stood in a corner of the white room across from us, waiting patiently.

I wondered what Mara’s reaction would be. The last time I’d seen her, she’d compressed herself into the corner of a basement and filled my head with a scream that I’d never forget—then plunged a knife into my back in a premeditated attempt to kill me.

A small door in the opposite room opened, and Mara followed Kinsey inside. He escorted her to a seat on the other side of the partition, bent down, and whispered a few words of apparent comfort.

She wore a white terry cloth robe over a white T-shirt and white flannel pajama pants. The familiar black curls of hair spilling over her shoulders and surrounding her pale face provided the only real contrast in the white room. For a strange moment it almost seemed that her disembodied head floated in a background of clouds all around.

Kinsey spoke into the circular phonelike opening in the middle of the glass. “Mara’s ready to speak with you. Just tap on the door behind you when you’re finished.”

Mara touched his hand, and Kinsey bent down to listen as she whispered. When he looked up, he spoke in an apologetic tone. “I’m sorry, but Mara will only speak with you, Dr. Madden.”

“What?” Woodson asked, preparing to protest.

At the sound of Woodson’s voice, Mara stood defiantly and began to back toward the door.

“Mara, wait,” I called after her, just before I glared and whispered behind me in a hushed tone. “She doesn’t know you, Woodson. She won’t trust you. Let me talk to her. Leave with Kinsey and watch the interview through the one-way mirror in the side room. You won’t miss a thing.”

Despite her disappointment, Woodson shrugged indifferently and stood to go. “Okay.”

“Thanks.” I said simply, turning back to the glass partition. Mara stayed near the exit until Woodson left. Once the door closed, she slowly made her way back to Kinsey.

He nodded to her, as if to confirm that the crisis was past. He patted Mara on the arm and left us, with only a glass pane between us, for the first time since the basement.

“How are you holding up, Mara?”

She looked behind her to make sure Kinsey was gone, then pulled out a pack of cigarettes. She tapped one out, lit it, and inhaled deeply. “You want one, Lucas?” she let the smoke pour out of her mouth as she spoke. “I bet you do.”

I’d expected contrition, or even profuse apologies, but not this. I tried to reel her back into reality. “Are you okay, Mara?”

She blew another lazy ring of cigarette smoke from her lips. “Thank you for asking, Lucas. Always the gentleman. But I’m fine. Fully recovered. Really.”

Her newfound flippancy about the entire ordeal threw me completely off guard. “Dr. Kinsey says you’re doing better. I’m glad to hear it.”

Mara slowly shifted her weight, arching her back as her voice dropped to a smoky growl of an aging cabaret dancer. “So you didn’t die in Nana’s basement?”

With a slight ache in my suddenly dry throat, I shook my head. “Nope. Here I am.” I didn’t know what else to say, and didn’t want to admit the degree of hurt that her simple comment caused.

Mara studied me for a moment, then a deep expression of wonderment crossed her features. “Oh, Lucas, you’d love the new one I’m working on, by the way. I just know you would. I remember all the nights you’d sit with me while I read my chapters to you. God, those were nice nights.”

My brain scrambled to catch up. I realized that she must be talking about a new novel. Her mind was jumping like hypertext, and I was reminded of Kinsey’s diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder. “Mara, that’s great. But I need to ask you some questions.”

She leaned forward and crushed her cigarette into a tin ashtray, never moving her eyes off me. “Don’t you miss me?” Her mouth opened slightly at the end of the question, as though she wanted to kiss me through the glass.

The idea of an interview began to seem like a much worse idea than I’d originally suspected. I ignored her advances. “What’s the last thing you remember, Mara, before you were abducted?”

She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. “It’s hard to remember. Everything is so fuzzy. I went to the store. Tyler had already left for his conference, and I just wanted to pick up some food for the next couple of nights.”

“What store?” I scribbled the notes in my notepad without looking up.

“Acme,” Mara said. “The one off Waveland.”

“Then what?”

“Then I woke up in a basement. Getting raped.”

Her words slammed into me like a wrecking ball. I thought I’d sympathized with her, but I hadn’t. I tried a new line of questioning, in a gentler tone. “Mara. Why in the world did you think I was your attacker? I would never…” I started to say, but didn’t finish.

“You said … I mean,
he
said that he was you.” She leaned forward and whispered. “I honestly thought it was you, Lucas. I swear to God, he sounded just like you.”

“So this person spoke to you?”

“No. He only whispered.”

“I see. So he whispered to you. And that whisper sounded like me?”

She nodded.

“So when the man spoke to you, did he tell you where he wanted to take you?”

She shook her head in confusion. “No. You said … I mean, he said that he wanted to take me somewhere where no one could find us.”

“What happened next?”

“So I told him about my grandmother’s house.” Mara smiled, but I could see tears in her eyes. “I thought it was you, Lucas. I wanted to go there and be with you. Alone. I was excited. I thought you were tricking me or something. That you wanted to come back to me.”

I exhaled as the answer to our main question—namely, how the SWK had known how to take Mara to her grandmother’s house—was finally revealed. Mara had directed him there herself.

I sighed. “Okay. But this guy surely didn’t look like me?”

She shook her head back and forth, this time choosing to elaborate. “No. I mean, I couldn’t tell. He didn’t let me see his face. I felt so fuzzy, Lucas. He blindfolded me after we went down into the basement. But he had a gentle touch, Lucas. And he whispered to me, told me he was you. He even told me that he’d come back to save me, but that later you’d pretend that you were never there.”