by Alan Russell
“Where’s Holly?” Cheever asked.
“She’ll return in half an hour.”
Had he slept that deeply that she had been able to walk by him? No. There was another door leading out to the hallway. The way the office was designed gave it an almost confessional air, the separate entrances and exits adding to the feel of Byzantine intrigue.
They sat down at the same time, each measuring the other’s movements and acting accordingly. Cheever flipped open his pad; the doctor picked up a pen to make her own notes. She also motioned to a tape recorder. “Do you mind?” she asked.
Cheever had the feeling it was a moot question. He shrugged, and she turned the machine on.
“Where was Holly last night?” he asked.
“I am afraid she was unable to answer that.”
Unable to answer, thought Cheever. Screw that. He opened his mouth, but the shrink spoke before he did.
“Helen wasn’t being uncooperative. She was in a fugue state from the early evening until this morning. In layman’s terms a fugue state translates to a blackout.”
“In layman’s terms that strikes me as being damn convenient,” Cheever said.
The doctor met the challenge in his eyes and tone. “Helen has a history of fugue states. Sometimes she forgets days. Other times years.”
Unbelieving, Cheever said, “Years?”
“That happened when she was much younger. Helen still has no memories from age five to seven.”
“How do you explain that?”
“The explanation is very complicated.”
Cheever was tired of being patronized. “If you speak real slowly, then maybe I’ll be able to understand it.”
“I can modify my speech,” she said, not responding to his barb, “but I can’t simplify Helen’s condition. She has been in therapy with me for four years, a journey which doesn’t allow for check-the-box answers. Though she has given me permission to speak with you about her, I must also consider our doctor-client relationship.”
“In that case, why don’t I just bypass the middleman and go directly to the source?”
“Because you need a translator. Because I’m the only one who can call the Greek chorus.”
“What do you mean?”
She made forceful eye contact. “Helen has dissociative identity disorder.”
“She has what?”
“Helen is a multiple personality.”
Cheever shook his head, leaned back in the chair, put his thumbs in his pockets, and then looked at the ceiling. Holly wasn’t just nuts. She was nuts several times over.
“What are you thinking?” asked Dr. Stern.
“I’m thinking that I’m wasting my time.”
“What else are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking you shouldn’t be treating me like one of your goddamn patients. I’m not one of your Hollys—or should I say Helens?”
The doctor nodded noncommittally, then answered his question. “She was born Helen Olympia Troy. When she was seven she started calling herself Holly. That’s one of her personalities. She has approximately a dozen more.”
“So I was taken in by a certifiable who’s into self-mutilation and parlor tricks?”
“I object to the word certifiable, and Helen does not practice self-mutilation.”
“You’re saying her wounds weren’t self-inflicted?”
“Yes—and no.”
“Can you be a little more ambiguous?”
“If, by your question, you are asking whether Helen took a knife and cut herself, or used any other implement to injure herself, then no, she didn’t.”
Dr. Stern opened a drawer and took out a packet of photos. She flipped through the pictures, selecting a handful for Cheever. Some were Polaroids she had snapped that night; most had been taken at other times.
“This is not the first time stigmata have appeared on Helen,” she said. “You can see that I’ve photographed them on other occasions. One of Helen’s personalities is extremely empathic. I am glad this particular personality doesn’t emerge very often because she cares entirely too much. She wants to take on the pain of the world.”
Cheever thumbed through the Polaroids. The shots were mostly close-ups of wounds on different parts of Holly’s anatomy. “If she didn’t mutilate herself, how’d these cuts occur?”
The doctor tapped her head. “They came out of her mind.”
“What do you mean?”
“Most of the stigmatics throughout the ages have been extremely devout Christians. They assumed the same wounds as Jesus, with their own flesh reflecting his torture. Romans weren’t needed to do the physical rending. Their minds produced the wounds.”
She walked over to her library, picked out several books, and brought them back with her. “There are accounts of stigmata appearing more than a thousand years ago,” she said. “In the last century photographic evidence has been collected.” She opened one of the books, found the section she was looking for, and then handed it to Cheever. He flipped through the pages and saw pictures of stigmata ranging from small sores to flesh that was completely eaten through. Cheever put the book aside.
“Maybe these people just mutilated themselves,” he said.
“And maybe Helen did the same?”
“That’s right.”
Rachel changed her tone, became less dogmatic. “I can understand your skepticism,” she said. “I went through it myself. What you are looking at seemingly defies logic, but multiples have their own rules. Or they break what rules there are. Many of my patients have ulcers caused by stress. Is it so hard to imagine external manifestations instead of internal ones?”
“It’s certainly not the norm.”
“And neither is dissociative identity disorder.”
“This morning I showed Helen crime scene photos,” Cheever said, “pictures of the wounds inflicted upon Bonnie Gill. What you’re telling me is that through the power of Helen’s mind her stigmata manifested themselves over the course of eight hours or so?”
“I suppose so,” Rachel said, but she sounded unsure.
“There seems to be some doubt in your mind, Doctor. In the past, did Helen’s wounds appear so quickly?”
“No,” she admitted, “but I expect this murder was particularly traumatic for Helen.”
“In the past, how long did it take for her stigmata to form?”
“A day. Several days.”
“Do tears of blood,” he asked, “always accompany her stigmata?”
“You witnessed that?” Rachel was excited and for a moment lost her reserve.
Cheever nodded. He could tell the shrink had seen the same thing, and was glad of it. Seeing was supposed to be believing, but Cheever still found it hard to believe in Helen’s bloody tears. Or her stigmata. He was reminded of a cop he knew who claimed to have seen a UFO, but who never sounded very sure in his telling. What the cop always kept coming back to was that his friend had seen the same thing. Only with the corroboration of other eyes do most people believe. It’s a rare person who has complete trust in himself.
The doctor started to ask him questions, but Cheever held up his hand. “I want to hear your sob stories first,” he said.
“I only saw her tears of blood the one time,” Rachel said. “It happened two years ago in this office. Helen had the late appointment that night. She came in acting more excited than I had ever seen her. She told me that she had just witnessed a miracle, just seen the spirit of a little girl materialize...”
“Graciela Fernandez?”
Surprised, the doctor said, “Yes.”
“Did Helen know her?”
The doctor shook her head. “No.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
Cheever tried to keep the disappointment off his features and motioned for her to continue.
“Helen talked about seeing this vision of Graciela materialize on a billboard. She told me she wasn’t the only one who saw Graciela. She said that hundreds
of other people saw her, maybe thousands. But Helen said she felt special because she could sense that both God and Graciela were sending a message directly to her.”
“Why would she care so much about a stranger?”
“Graciela was in the news so often she wasn’t a stranger to Helen, just as I don’t think she was a stranger to most San Diegans.”
That was true enough. There had been prayer vigils and public entreaties from the little girl’s parents. The abduction of Graciela had been played up locally and nationally. She was everybody’s missing daughter.
“What do you think moved Helen to cry those tears that first time?” he asked.
“I can only speculate. It might have been a validation for Helen of something greater, something better. But what I sensed most was her relief. She knew Graciela was at peace and that meant so much to her.”
It was Cheever’s turn. He recounted the story of Helen’s bloody tears dispassionately, as if he hadn’t been moved by the spectacle, and then told about their drive over. When he finished, the detective and the doctor looked at one another. Neither blinked much. They both knew how to play verbal poker. Show a few cards, hold a few.
“Did Helen say anything to you about Bonnie Gill?” he asked.
The doctor shook her head. “No. Pandora is maintaining her silence on that subject.”
“Pandora?”
“One of Helen’s personalities.”
“She chose the name?”
“Or it chose her.”
Next stop the twilight zone, he thought. How much stranger could this case get? “Is Pan-dor-a,” he said, stretching out the name as well as his sarcasm, “always so reluctant to speak?”
“No. Pandora is what is called an ISH, an internal or inner self-helper. All multiples have one. She is the memory link to all of Helen’s personalities.”
“And she’s not saying anything?”
The doctor nodded.
“So why is Pandora clamming up?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“But she knows what happened last night?”
Rachel reluctantly nodded her head.
“How frequently does Helen have these fugue states?”
“Two or three times a year. In the past Pandora has always been able to tell me what occurred.”
“But not this time?”
“That’s right.”
Cheever looked dubious. “Tell me about Helen’s two-year fugue state as a child,” he said.
“I wish I could, but I can’t.”
“Can Pandora?”
“I believe so.”
“But let me guess,” said Cheever, “she’s not talking.”
Dr. Stern didn’t respond.
“Why her veil of secrecy then and now?” Cheever asked.
“It would only be conjecture on my part...”
“Speculate away.”
“She might be trying to protect Helen and the other alters.”
“From what Pandora saw, or what they did?”
“I would imagine the former.”
“But you don’t know?”
“How could I?”
“It’s been almost twenty years between Pandora’s Quaker meetings. What does that suggest?”
“I’m not certain.”
“What are the names of her other personalities?”
“Alphabetically, they’re Caitlin, Cronos, Eris, Eurydice, Helen, Holly, Hygeia, the Maenads, the Moirae, Nemesis, and Pandora.”
Cheever surprised Rachel by not asking her to repeat the names, by apparently assimilating the information in his mind with her solitary recitation. He surprised her even more with his apparent familiarity with mythology.
“Cronos is a male,” he observed.
“Yes. Multiples often have alters of the other gender.”
“Who is Caitlin?”
“A five-year-old girl. Most multiples have an inner child.”
“She’s the only one besides Helen and Holly who’s not a mythological character.”
“That’s right.”
“The Moirae are the Fates, aren’t they?”
“Yes. Clotho is the Fate who spins the thread of life, Lachesis the one who measures it, and Atropos the Fate who cuts it.” After a small pause Rachel added, “When they emerge, they tend to be unsettling.”
“The Fates,” mused Cheever. “I think those lovely ladies made a brief appearance during the drive.”
Dr. Stern didn’t bother to tell him she already knew that. She also didn’t inform Cheever that he had met at least four of Helen’s other personalities on the drive over.
“Nemesis,” Cheever said, as if making a point, “is the goddess of vengeance. I imagine that alter would also be unsettling.”
He used Rachel’s word, but gave it a sinister intonation.
“Some personalities are more expressive than others,” she said.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Cronos, in particular, is angry.”
“Enough to be a danger to others?”
“Enough to be careful around.”
Rachel didn’t tell the detective about the time Cronos had emerged in her office. She had called for Pandora, but it was Cronos that popped out. He had screamed at her, had said no one controlled him, and had swept everything off her desk. Then he had grabbed her. There was incredible strength in those arms; there was something there that was definitely not Helen. Talking Cronos out of his rage had been difficult. Since that day, Rachel had made sure there were no paperweights or letter openers on her desk. She had discarded anything that could be used to injure her, had gone so far as to get both a stun gun and pepper oil spray. They were sitting in her top drawer, ready in case Cronos came at her again.
As Cheever continued to probe Helen’s other alters, the doctor found herself offering mostly monosyllabic answers. She was concerned for her patient. This man didn’t care about Helen; she was only a stepping stone to his grisly end of finding a murderer. The detective said that this was a case that needed “clearance,” as if he was talking about a sale. She viewed Cheever as a potential bull in a china shop. No, worse. He was a potential Minotaur in a china shop mind.
“At what age did Helen’s personalities emerge?”
“Between four and eight.”
“Between four and eight,” he said. “Most little girls are playing with Barbie then. What kind of a girl was Helen that she even knew about such mythological characters?”
“Helen’s father is a professor of classics, professor emeritus now. He raised her on the myths. They were the stories of her youth.”
“Still, isn’t it unusual that Helen’s personalities are mostly derived from mythological characters?”
“Exotic personalities are not uncommon among multiples.”
“Did her father name her Helen?”
“Yes.”
“Cruel man.”
Dr. Stern didn’t rise to his bait.
“So which came first, the gods or her personalities?”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Cronos is angry. Eurydice is sad. Hygeia feels for others. And so on. Instead of feelings, Helen has personalities. Is her behavior predicated on which god she is, or is it the other way around?”
“Cause and effect are difficult to separate.”
“Are the personalities antagonistic to one another?”
“At times.”
“To what degree?”
“It’s analogous to sibling rivalry.”
Actually, it was often more pronounced than that, but Rachel decided that was something else Cheever didn’t need to know. There was jealousy among the personalities, running battles over conduct and who should be allowed “out,” and the pecking order in general. Rachel had heard of more extreme cases where the alters detested one another, hurting and sabotaging each other whenever they could. She had been told about one personality who loved her kitten more than anything in the world, and how another pers
onality, to get back at her, had strangled it. Although there was antipathy between some of Helen’s alters, it wasn’t as extreme as that, or at least Rachel didn’t think so.
“As I see it then,” said Cheever, “if I want to know what Helen was up to last night, I need to pry open Pandora’s box.”
“I can’t recommend that course of action, Detective. It could be extremely deleterious to Helen’s mental health.”
“I’d think it would be hard to screw her up any more than she already is.”
“Then you’d be very wrong about that,” she said. “Helen and I are working toward a positive resolution of her disorder. I would hope you could respect those efforts.”
Cheever let his long workday get the better of him. “Your job is to listen to people, isn’t it?”
“That’s part of my job.”
“Well, just in case you missed something, Doctor, this is a murder investigation.”
CHAPTER
FIVE
As Helen and Cheever drove out of the parking garage, he couldn’t help but wonder, Who the hell is sitting next to me?
Helen had undergone another metamorphosis, had returned to the shrink’s office looking like a different woman. She had replaced her bloody garments with a black top and shorts pulled from her athletic bag, but her transformation transcended a change of clothing. Helen had stopped bleeding and was no longer pale and drawn. Her posture was different, as was her demeanor. The doctor had noticed Cheever’s amazement and had commented on the amazing recuperative vigor of multiples: “One of my colleagues refers to their healing prowess as the power of positive thinking—several times over.”
That hadn’t been answer enough for Cheever. “What happened to you?” he asked Helen.
“I changed,” she said.
At first Cheever had thought Helen’s answer an understatement. Now he realized just how complete it was.
“You want to listen to the radio?” Cheever asked.
“Sure,” she said.
“What kind of music do you like?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
That’s right, thought Cheever. You don’t need to change the station. All you have to do is find a personality that likes what ever’s playing. He started searching the stations, not sure of what he wanted to hear. It was clear Dr. Stern hadn’t approved of Cheever’s playing chauffeur to Helen, but that’s how it had played out. The shrink had said she needed to make some notes, and Helen had said she needed to make tracks. Dr. Stern was suspicious of him. She was right, Cheever thought, to have those suspicions.
