She shifted closer.
“He’d just chant it,” she said, touching my cuff. “Like some priest … throwing out these images. Not giving you a chance to speak. He made you feel you were the only bad person in a beautiful world—a shit smear on silk. And you believed him. You believed everyone was changing for the better, learning to control themselves. Everyone was on his side, you were the only piece of shit.”
“Cutting you off,” I said, “so you wouldn’t confide in the other kids.”
“It worked; I never confided in anyone. Later, when I was out of there—years later—I realized it was stupid, I couldn’t have been the only one. I’d seen other kids go into the rooms—it seems so ridiculously logical now. But back then, I couldn’t—he kept focusing me in on myself. On the bad parts of me. The vermin animal parts.”
“You were isolated right from the beginning. New environment, new routine.”
“Exactly!” she said, squeezing my arm. “I was scared shitless. My parents never told me where we were going, just shoved me in the car and tossed in a suitcase. The whole ride up there, they wouldn’t speak to me. When we got there, they drove through the gates, dumped me in the office, left me there and drove away. Later I found out that’s what he instructed them to do. Have a happy summer, Meredith …”
Her eyes got wet. “I’d just repeated seventh grade. Finally faked enough to barely pass and was looking forward to a vacation. I thought summer would be the beach and Lake Arrowhead—we had a cabin, always went there as a family. They dumped me and went without me … no apologies, no explanation. I thought I’d died and gone to hell—sitting in that office, all those brown uniforms, no one talking to me. Then he came out, smiling like a clown, saying, what a pretty girl you are, telling me to come with him, he’d be taking care of me. I thought: what a jerk, no problem putting it over on him. The first time I stepped out of line, he let it pass. The second time, he pulled me into a room and bad-loved me. I walked out of there in a semi-coma … blitzed, wasted—it’s hard to explain, but it was almost like dying. Like bad dope—I felt I was on a rocky island in the middle of a storm. This crazy, black, roaring sea, with sharks all around … no escape, him working on my bad parts—chewing me up!”
“What a nightmare,” I said.
“The first week I hardly slept or ate. Lost ten pounds. The worst part was that you believed him. He had a way of taking over your head—like he was sitting in your skull, scraping away at your brain. You really felt you were shit and belonged in hell.”
“None of the kids ever talked to each other?”
“Maybe some did, I didn’t. Maybe I could’ve, I don’t know—I sure didn’t feel I could. Everyone walking around smiling, saying how great Dr. B. was. Such a beautiful guy. You found yourself saying it, too, mouthing along without thinking, like one of those dumb camp songs. There was this—this feverish atmosphere to the place. Grinning idiots. Like a cult. You felt if you spoke out against him, someone would pour poison Kool-Aid down your throat.”
“Was physical punishment ever part of bad love?”
“Once in a while—usually a slap, a pinch, nothing that hurt too much. It was mostly the humiliation—the surprise. When he wanted to hurt you, he’d poke you in the elbow or the shoulder. Flick his finger on the bone. He knew all the spots … nothing that would leave a scar, not that anyone would have believed us, anyway. Who were we? Truants, fuckups, rejects. Even now, would I be credible? Four abortions, Valium, Librium, Thorazine, Elavil, lithium? All the other things I’ve done? Wouldn’t some lawyer dig that up and put me on trial? Wouldn’t I be a piece of shit all over again?”
“Probably.”
Her smile was rich with disgust. “I’m jazzed that he’s dead—doubly jazzed he did it to himself—his turn for humiliation.”
She looked up at the ceiling.
“What is it?” I said.
“Killing himself—do you think he could have felt some guilt?”
“With what you’ve told me, it’s hard to imagine.”
“Yeah. You’re probably right … yeah, he slapped me plenty of times, but the pain was welcome. ’Cause when he was getting physical, he wasn’t talking. His voice. His words. He could reach into your center and squeeze the life out of you … did you know he used to write columns in magazines—humane child rearing? People sent in problems and he’d offer fucking solutions?”
I sighed.
“Yes,” she said. “My sad, sad story—such pathos.” Looking around the restaurant, she cupped one ear. “Any daytime-serial people listening? Got a bitchin’ script for you.”
“You never told anyone?”
“Not until you, dear.” Smile. “Aren’t you flattered? All those shrinks and you’re the very first—why, you’ve deflowered me—busted my psychological cherry!”
“Interesting way to put it.”
“But fitting, right? Therapy’s just like fucking—you open yourself up to a stranger and hope for the best.”
I said, “You said you saw other kids going into the rooms. Were they taken by other people, or just de Bosch?”
“Mostly by him, sometimes by that creepy daughter of his. I always got personal attention from the big cheese—Daddy’s social position and all that.”
“Katarina was involved in treatment? When exactly were you there?”
“Seventy-six.”
“She was only twenty-three. Still a student.”
Shrug. “Everyone treated her as if she was a shrink. What she was was a real bitch. Walking around with this smug look on her face—Daddy was the king and she was the princess. Now there’s one dutiful daughter who really did want to fuck Papa.”
“Did you have any direct dealings with her?”
“Other than a sneer in the hall? No.”
“What about other staffers? Did you see any of them doing private sessions?”
“No.”
“None of those names I mentioned rang a bell?”
She gave a pained look. “It all blurs—I’ve been through changes, my whole life until a few years ago is a blur.”
“Can I go over those names again?”
“Sure, why not.” She picked up her cup and drank.
“Grant Stoumen.”
Headshake.
“Mitchell Lerner.”
“Maybe … that one’s a little familiar, but I have no face to go with it.”
I gave her some time to think.
She said, “Nope.”
“Harvey Rosenblatt.”
“Uh-uh.”
“Wilbert Harrison.”
“No.”
“He’s a little man who wears purple all the time.”
“Does he ride a pink elephant?” Grin.
“Myra Evans.”
Eyeblink. Frown.
I repeated the name.
“You used another name before,” she said. “Myra something hyphenated.”
“Evans-Paprock—Paprock was her married name.”
“Evans.” Another smile, not at all happy. “Myra Evans—Myra the Bitch. She was a teacher, right? A little blond with a tight butt and an attitude—am I right?”
I nodded.
“Yeah,” she said. “Myra the Bitch. She was assigned to tread where others had failed. Like teaching moi how to read. She kept drilling me, harassing me, forcing me to do stupid exercises that didn’t do a fucking bit of good because the words stayed all scrambled. When I got something wrong, she’d clap her hands together and say no in this loud voice. Like training a dog. Telling me I was stupid, a moron, not paying attention—she used to clamp her hands on my face and force me to look into her eyes.”
She placed her hands on my cheeks and pressed them together, hard. Her palms were wet and her mouth was parted. She brought me forward and I thought she might kiss me. Instead, she said, “Pay attention! Listen, you moron!” in a grating voice.
I suppressed the impulse to twist free. That instant of confinement drove my empathy up another notch.
>
“Pay attention! Stop wandering, stupid! This is important! You need to learn this! If you don’t pay attention, you can’t learn!”
She squeezed harder. Let go. Smiled again. “Breath mints—that was her smell. Isn’t it funny how you remember the smells? Mints, but her breath was still shitty. She thought she was hot. Kinda young, little miniskirts, big boobs … maybe she was letting Dr. B. slip it to her.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because of the way she acted around him. Looks. Following him around. She reported directly to him. One thing you could count on, after a difficult session with Miss Bitch, you’d soon be seeing Dr. Botch for candles and needle twisting. So she got murdered, huh?”
“Very nastily.”
“Too bad.” She pouted, then smiled. “See, I can be a hypocrite, too. It’s called acting, I work with people who do it for a living—we all do, actually, don’t we?”
“What about Rodney Shipler? Does that name mean anything to you?”
“Nope.”
“Delmar Parker—the boy I told you about over the phone.”
“Yeah, the truck. That’s how I knew you were for real. He was before my time.”
“May seventy-three. You heard about it?”
“I heard about it from Botch. Boy, did I.”
“During a bad love session?”
Nod. “The wages of sin. I’d committed some major felony—I think it was not wearing underwear, or something. Or maybe he caught me with a boy—I don’t remember. He said I was a vermeen aneemal and stupid, then gave me this whole spiel about a vermeen aneemal boy who’d received the ultimate punishment for his stupidity. “Death, young lady. Death.’ ”
“What did he say happened?”
“The kid stole a truck, ran it off the road, and got killed. Proof positive of what happened to vermeen aneemal moron children. Botch had a good time with it—making fun of the kid, laughing a lot, as if it were just a big joke. ‘Do you comprehend, you bad, styupid girl? A boy so styupid, he steals a truck even though he doesn’t know how to drive? Ha ha ha. A boy so styupid he virtually choreographs his own death? Ha ha ha.’ ”
“He used that word? ‘Choreograph’?”
“Yes,” she said, looking surprised. “I believe he actually did.”
“What else did he say about the accident?”
“Disgusting details—that was part of bad love. Grossing you out. He had a ball with this one. How they didn’t find the boy right away and when they did there were maggots in his mouth and crawling in and out of his eyes—“He is being eaten by maggots, my dear Meredith. Feasted upon. Consumed. And the animals have feasted upon him, too. Chewed away most of his face—it is a real mess—just like your character, styupid Meredith. You are not listening, you are not concentrating, you bad, styupid girl. We are trying to mold you into something decent but you refuse to cooperate. Think, Meredith. Think of that styupid boy. The bad love he received from the maggots. That is what happens when vermeen aneemals don’t change their ways.’ ”
She gave a hard, dry laugh and dabbed her nose again.
“That might not be an exact quote, but it’s pretty damn close. He also got into this whole racist rap—said the kid in the truck was black. ‘A savage, Meredith. A jungle native. Why would you want to imitate the savages when there’s a world of civilization out there?’ On top of everything else, he’s a racist, too. Even without the rap, you could tell. The looks he gave the minority kids.”
“Were there a lot of minority kids?”
She shook her head. “Just a few. Tokens, probably—part of the public image. In public he was Mr. Liberal—pictures of Martin Luther King and Gandhi and the Kennedys all over the place. Like I said, it’s all acting—the world is a fucking stage.”
She placed her hands flat on the table, looking ready to get up again.
“A couple more names,” I said. “Silk.”
Headshake.
“Merino.”
“What is this, a fabric show? Uh-uh.”
“Lyle Gritz?”
“Grits and toast,” she said. “Nope. How many people have gotten bumped off, anyway?”
“Lots. I’m on the list, too.”
Her eyes rounded. “You? Why?”
“I co-chaired a symposium on de Bosch’s work. At Western Peds.”
“Why?” she said coldly. “Were you a fan?”
“No. Actually, your father requested it of me.”
“Requested it, huh? What approach did he take? Squeezing your balls or kissing your ass?”
“Squeezing. He did it as a favor to Katarina.”
“Symposium, huh? Gee thanks, Dad. The man tortures me, so you throw him a party—when did this take place?”
“Seventy-nine.”
She thought. “Seventy-nine—I was in Boston in seventy-nine. Catholic girls’ school, even though we weren’t Catholic … a symposium.” She laughed.
“You never told your parents anything that happened at the Corrective School?”
“Nothing—I was too numb, and they wouldn’t have listened, anyway. After that summer, I didn’t talk to anyone, just went along, like some robot. They handed Botch a naughty acting-out girl and got back this compliant little zombie. They thought it was a miracle cure. Years later, they were still saying it was the best decision they ever made. I’d just stare at them, want to kill them, keep my feelings all inside.”
The pale eyes were wet.
“How long did you stay that way?” I said softly.
“I don’t know—months, years—like I said, it blurs. All I know is it took a real long time to get back to my true self, get smart enough to mess around and cover my tracks. No sticky stains on the clothes.”
She licked her lips and grinned. A tear dripped down one cheek. She wiped it away angrily.
“When I was eighteen, I told them ‘fuck you’ and left—ran away with a guy who came to unclog the toilet.”
“Sounds like you’ve done pretty well since.”
“How kind of you to say so, dear—oh yeah, it’s been a blast. PR’s a bullshit business, so I’m perfect for it. Throwing parties, setting up promos. Feeding rumors to the idiot press. Well, the show must go on. Ciao. It was real, stud.”
She stood and nearly ran out of the restaurant.
I put money on the table and followed her, caught up as she was getting into a red Mustang convertible. The car looked new, but there were dings and dents all along the driver’s side.
“Uh-uh, no more,” she said, starting the engine. “You get a quickie mind-fuck for your ten bucks, and that’s it.”
“Just wanted to thank you,” I said.
“Polite, too,” she said. “I really don’t like you.”
CHAPTER
30
Robin said, “Bad love. The hypocrisy.”
“The bastard coins a phrase to describe poor child rearing, but has his own private meaning for it.”
“Victimizing little kids.” Her hands tightened around the handle of a wood rasp. The blade caught on a piece of rosewood, and she pulled it free and put it down.
“And,” I said, “if this woman’s experience was typical, the victimization was perfectly legal. De Bosch didn’t sexually molest anyone, and none of the physical things he did would fall under any child-abuse statutes but Sweden’s.”
“Not the poking and slapping?”
“No bruises, no case, and usually you need deep wounds and broken bones to get anywhere legally. Corporal punishment’s still allowed in many schools. Back then, it was accepted procedure. And there’s never been any law against mind control or psychological abuse—how can you pin down the criteria? Basically, de Bosch behaved like a really rotten parent, and that’s no crime.”
She shook her head. “And no one ever said anything.”
“Maybe some of the children did, but I doubt anyone believed them. These were problem kids. Their credibility was low and their parents were angry. In some cases de Bosch was probab
ly the court of last resort. This woman came back to her family traumatized but perfectly compliant. They never suspected the summer at the school was anything but successful.”
“Some success.”
“We’re talking ultrahigh levels of parental frustration, Rob. Even if what de Bosch did had come to light and some parents had pulled their kids out, I’ll bet you others would have rushed to enroll theirs. De Bosch’s victims never had any legal recourse. Now, one of them’s evening the score his own way.”
“The same old chain,” she said. “Victims and victimizers.”
“The thing that bothers me, though, is why the killer didn’t strike out against de Bosch, only the disciples. Unless de Bosch died before the killer was old enough—or assertive enough—to put together a revenge plot.”
“Or crazy enough.”
“That, too. If I’m right about the killer being directly traumatized by Delmar Parker’s accident, we’re talking about someone who was a student at the school in 1973. De Bosch died seven years later, so the killer may still have been a kid. Felons that young rarely commit carefully planned crimes. They’re more into impulsive stuff. Another thing that could have stopped him from getting de Bosch was being locked up. Jail or a mental institution. That fits with our Mr. Gritz—the ten years unaccounted for between his leaving Georgia and getting arrested here.”
“More frustration,” she said.
“Exactly. Not being able to punish de Bosch directly could have heated him up even further. The first murder occurred five years ago. Myra Paprock. Maybe that was the year he was released. Myra would have been a good target for him. A trusted disciple, dictatorial.”
“Makes sense,” she said, looking down at her workbench and arranging some files, “if de Bosch really killed himself. But what if he was murdered and made to look like a suicide?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “His death was too peaceful—overdose of medication. Why would the killer butcher subordinates and allow the boss to get off so easy? And a ritual approach—one that fulfilled a psychological need—would have meant leaving the best for last, not starting with de Bosch first and working backwards.”
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