by Alan Russell
She offered a tentative okay. The game didn’t sound as fun as hide-and-go-seek.
“What color is your hair?”
“Red,” she said.
“Do you have freckles?”
“Of course,” she said.
Bonnie Gill’s hair was red and she had freckles. “What color are your eyes?”
“Green.”
Bonnie Gill’s eyes had been brown. Cheever’s momentary excitement subsided. “Do you have any scars?”
Her nose crinkled. “What’s a scar?”
“It’s where you’ve been hurt. After you get a wound your body tissue heals and leaves a scar. Here, I’ll show you one.”
Cheever started to roll up his shirt cuff, but then noticed she wasn’t paying any attention. “Caitlin,” he said.
She didn’t respond, and the mirror held no more interest for her. “Pandora?” he asked.
She looked up at him, but didn’t say anything. “It must be lonely,” he said, “knowing things, but not being able to talk about them.”
She still didn’t say anything, but a tear rolled down her cheek.
Their pizza arrived. Not surprisingly, Pandora chewed with her mouth closed.
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
“I think I was attacked last night,” Helen said.
Dr. Stern didn’t immediately respond to her words. Sometimes when Helen was feeling particularly needy she said things to get attention, but the timing of this announcement and the manner of her disclosure weren’t consistent with her usual patterns of getting noticed. Their session was more than half over, and Helen’s manipulations usually occurred at the beginning of their hour. It was common for multiples to have a sense of the dramatic. Therapists often gained their cooperation by allowing them their intrigues and sometimes even encouraged them in their fantasies.
“Attacked?”
“I think someone tried to hurt me.”
“When did this happen?”
“Last night. I woke up this morning in pain. And bandaged.”
“Bandaged where?”
“Here.” She pointed to her chest. “I think I was cut.”
“Would you mind showing me?”
Helen answered by unbuttoning her shirt. She was used to the doctor examining both her mind and body. Given a choice, she would have taken the physical anytime. Helen sometimes worked as an art model. One way or another she’d been taking off her clothes professionally for six years and had little modesty. She wasn’t wearing a bra; atop her left breast was a bandage.
“I’ll need to remove the dressing,” said Rachel, but she was talking mostly to herself. When she’d been a medical intern she hadn’t enjoyed tending to physical ailments. Part of her attraction to psychiatry was that the corporeal wasn’t stressed. She much preferred dealing with the mental and biochemical. Rachel gently stripped away the bandage. It was clear the wrapping hadn’t been professionally applied; the patches, cotton, and adhesive strips were piled on in a haphazard manner. Her stigmata had all vanished, only to be replaced by this new wound. The cut wasn’t deep, but was about two inches long. The wound was healing nicely, though the scab made the cut look worse than it was.
“I’d like to take some pictures,” Rachel said.
Helen consented with a shrug. The doctor was always snapping photos to document their therapy. She used her cell phone to take shots from several angles. She did some close-ups of the wound, and because she was looking through a lens didn’t see the change in her patient.
“Hey, Doc, how about taking a few cheesecake shots?”
Eris vamped for her, wet her lips, and did a few peek-a-boo poses. Rachel humored her by snapping several pictures, but as the poses became more outrageous she put the phone down and assumed her professional persona. Pointing to the wound, she said, “I would recommend a tetanus shot.”
“Looks like you’re more worried about lockjaw,” Eris said, “than I am.”
Jealous over Pandora. Rachel didn’t respond to the remark, knew only too well that Eris was always instigating internal battles. She opened a drawer, pulled out a first-aid kit, and said, “Please stand still while I dress your wound.”
“You and your famous medicine chest.”
Dr. Stern ignored her innuendo, just as Eris ignored her request.
Eris’s smugness disappeared in sudden pain. “Hey!”
“I warned you about standing still.”
“You should have warned me about your bedside manner. But then I could have guessed.”
Rachel finished dressing the wound, her face expressing nothing. Eris frequently attacked her femininity and sexuality. As a doctor, she knew not to respond. As a woman, she couldn’t help but feel.
“Were you clubbing last night?” Rachel asked.
“Yes, in-deed-y.”
That explains how you got hurt, Rachel thought. The Maenads were probably jumping from table to table, or more likely, Eris was juggling daggers.
“Why don’t you tell me about the cut?”
“Didn’t happen on my shift.”
Sometimes Eris “slept” while the other personalities came out. Her memory link was limited. “When did it happen?”
“After I checked out.”
“Which was when?”
“A little past midnight.”
“You retired early.”
“It was involuntary.”
“Who took over?”
“Eeyore.”
That was one of Eris’s nicer names for Eurydice. “Was there some problem?”
When Eris was too rambunctious, Eurydice often emerged. Eris didn’t like that, didn’t understand how a “weak sister” could gain control. “No real problem. I seem to remember there was some painting she was all anxious to get to. Like it couldn’t wait.”
That was probably why Eris had slept. She was one of the few personalities not interested in painting. Her palette, she said, was life.
“I went over our conversation yesterday...”
“Do you like to mentally masturbate, Doc?”
Rachel continued with her observation as if she hadn’t heard: “...and was interested in several things that you said.”
“I kind of think you get off that way, loving mind games the way you do. You probably think about some long-ago lover and get hot and bothered by ancient memories of short strokes. You’re so into your mind I doubt whether you even need a hand...”
“When you referred back to the dream you said that the hole was, and I quote, ‘the place where dreams die.’”
“...and you sure don’t need a man, do you?”
“What did you mean by that?”
Eris regarded Dr. Stern with a smile. “Yesterday’s news is yesterday’s blues, lady. I’m not one to eat regurgitated meat.”
“Which dreams died?”
“Hers.”
“Whose?”
“Mine.”
“Yours?”
“Ours.”
“You as Eris, or you as Helen Troy? Or were you referring to someone else?”
“I need a cigarette.”
Eris was the only alter who smoked. She knew the rule was no smoking in the doctor’s office, but she also knew when to negotiate from strength.
“Go ahead.”
She searched through her purse, found one lone, bent cigarette. “Bitch keeps throwing them out,” she said, then lit up.
“We were discussing the death of dreams.”
Eris took a long drag, blew out her answer with the smoke: “To be honest, Doc, I’m shooting from the hip. And I got kinda small hips.”
“You’re saying that you don’t remember?”
“It’s kinda hazy.”
“What about when you said, ‘It’s childhood’s end’?”
Eris didn’t immediately respond, which was unusual for her. “You ever have trouble distinguishing between what’s real and what isn’t, Doc?”
The ten-dollar answer or the one-dollar answer? Rachel
nodded her head.
For a moment the goddess of discord almost deviated from her character. She looked pensive and troubled before remembering who she was. “Then maybe you ought to get some professional help, Doctor.”
Rachel didn’t show her disappointment. “I’d like to speak to Eurydice please,” she said.
“You know what they say: You can take the girl out of the underworld, but you can’t take the underworld out of the girl.” And then Eris was gone, with only her echo in the air.
“Good afternoon, Eurydice,” said Dr. Stern.
Eurydice showed to what extent appearances were influenced by the personality. Eris considered herself alluring and vibrant and it showed. With Eurydice, the shades were drawn. There was a gravity to her, tragedy carried on her slumping shoulders.
“Hello,” she said quietly, atonally.
“I was hoping you would tell me about your wound.”
Eurydice never responded immediately. It was as if some censor put a time delay on her words. “Yes,” she finally said. “Last night I took Cerberus outside. I remember thinking about the painting I wanted to get to. You know how preoccupied I can get, Doctor.”
Rachel nodded.
“I wasn’t paying attention. Then I got this feeling, this flash, that something was wrong. I turned and moved backward at the same time. And that’s when I was stabbed.”
“Your attacker tried to strike you from behind?”
“I believe so. A footstep or some noise must have alerted me.”
“Did you see your attacker?”
She shook her head.
“No impressions whatsoever?”
Another shake of the head.
“Nothing was said?”
“I don’t think so. I started screaming and running. And then Cerberus was barking. Everything was so confused it’s hard to remember.”
“If you had to guess,” the doctor said, “was it a man or a woman who struck you?”
After a long consideration: “A man.”
“Tall? Small? Dark? Light?”
“I couldn’t tell you.”
“Did he chase after you?”
“For a step or two, I think. With my screaming and Cerberus’s barking, he gave up quickly.”
“Your assailant ran away?”
“He must have.”
“Did the dog chase after him?”
“No. Cerberus stayed by my side.”
“Did you call the police?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I wanted to get to my painting.”
The answer would have been strange out of anyone else’s mouth, but for Helen Troy and most of her personalities it made perfect sense to prioritize a painting ahead of personal safety, even an attempted murder. Her art superseded everything.
“It surprised me that I screamed,” said Eurydice. “Death should not have frightened me.”
Her voice was full of a familiar melancholy that was never very far from her. On those occasions when she emerged from her shell her conversations tended to be long, metaphysical ramblings. Rachel decided it was too late in the session for that. “I’d like to talk with Helen,” she said.
Eurydice sighed and was gone. Though Helen had no memory link with her personalities, she was always aware of her art and considered herself the creator.
“Tell me about the painting you’re working on, Helen.”
“Paintings,” she said. “I’m working on several.”
“Which one were you working on last night?”
“I just started,” she said, not hiding her annoyance. “It’s only at the sketch stage.”
“I know you don’t like to talk about your unfinished paintings,” said Rachel, “but I’d appreciate your giving me a little description.”
An aggrieved breath, then, “I’m calling it The Great Undertaking. It shows Orpheus descending to the underworld. Around him there are other holes in the ground. It’s not apparent whether someone was trying to tunnel down or tunnel out. There is scattered dirt, a few bones, some debris, and a Georgia O’Keefe kind of cow skull.”
“What was your inspiration for this painting?”
“I suppose the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.”
“Is Eurydice anywhere in the painting?”
A shake of her head.
“Does Orpheus look like anyone you know?”
Helen thought about it. “I guess he looks like Detective Cheever.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“Because his face would have been on my mind. When he came over to my studio yesterday I asked him to pose for me. His weathered look made me want to paint him. He’s got a face of the Old West, like he’s walked through a lot of shit and breathed in a lot of trail dust.”
“How did you get him to pose for you?”
“He didn’t do it willingly. It’s the price he had to pay for asking me questions. Maybe I should strike the same bargain with you.”
“What is Orpheus’s expression as he descends into the underworld?”
“He looks like he’s been there before.”
“Are you in that painting?”
“I suppose a part of me is in all of my works.”
“Where?”
“Everywhere.”
“Tell me about the holes and the bones.”
Helen’s head dropped to her chest. The room seemed to darken around her. She didn’t raise her head, but kept it lowered. Then her hands started moving as if she were working at a spinning wheel. Rachel felt her throat tighten. She was in the presence of Clotho the spinner, one of the three Fates.
“So many lives,” she said in her crone’s voice. “So many tangled threads.”
Was she talking about the personalities of Helen Troy, Rachel wondered, or other people as well? She cleared her throat to ask the question, but her voice failed.
“Paths are crossed; beginnings and endings are mixed.” Clotho shook her head and continued spinning. “Ah, the common thread. Death and disease.”
Rachel found herself trembling. The spinning wheel kept spinning.
“And enough pain to fill my skein.” The discovery delighted Clotho. Her hands moved and she cackled.
Abruptly, the spinning stopped, replaced by hands that measured threads, stretching them out to appropriate lengths. It was time for Lachesis to dispense lots, to measure lives.
Her voice was gravel and tar. “The truth will set her free. The truth will destroy her. Death stalks her; death frees her. In her threads are carnation, incarnation, and reincarnation.”
Lachesis raised her head, but somehow she was still shrouded. In the darkness surrounding her, it appeared that she had only one eye. She stared at Rachel, laughed, and said, “Et tu, Brute?”
Why, the doctor wondered, wasn’t she responding to this pseudo-witchery? Why wasn’t she just laughing and expressing her disdain? Rachel watched her life being measured.
“A frayed thread, afraid of zed. She works with minds from her ivory towers, but she’s too high up to smell the flowers. Will Rapunzel let down her hair, so that he can climb her brunette stair?”
Lachesis finished her measuring.
“Three of me, three of thee. He steps on graves and searches for knaves, but how can he find truth when he can’t even exorcise his own dark caves?”
She laughed. “Another common thread. The ties that bind. A family that bleeds together, needs together.”
Her head slumped, as if felled, then the third Fate arose, Atropos, whose name means “inflexible.” She didn’t stop to talk, just went about her task of cutting, cutting, cutting. She snipped away at the threads of human life, severed a dozen or more.
Most of the threads, Rachel couldn’t help but notice, were cut very short.
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
Rollo Adams was being interviewed for a Live at Five spot on the news. He was trying to look pious, doing his best not to show how much he liked being in the spotlight. He ta
lked about Bonnie Gill’s death and her dreams. In his boutonniere he wore a very prominent carnation. It was a suddenly vogue symbol. Cheever had heard that several members of the city council had also worn carnations that day. If he was a betting man, he’d wager the whole damn council would be wearing them tomorrow. Bonnie Gill was becoming a cause célèbre.
“Turn that thing off,” said Hayes. “Gives me gas having to listen to that much hot air.”
A hand reached out and turned the television off. It was suddenly very quiet on the fourth floor. Team IV pretty much had the floor to itself. Though Adams had referred anyone with information on Bonnie Gill’s death to call the police, the number that had flashed on the screen throughout his interview was that of the Carnation Fund. Cheever made a mental note of that. When Adams called with one complaint or another, and Cheever knew that would be sooner rather than later, he would have his own grievance to air.
Cheever’s phone rang. “Cheever.”
“This is Rachel,” she said.
They had been playing phone tag all afternoon. Now Cheever was beginning to feel silly about having even called her. This was an investigation, not a forum for a schoolboy’s crush. “There were a few questions I wanted to ask you...”
“Before we get into those,” Rachel said, “you should know that Helen just left my office. She tells me someone stabbed her last night.”
“Impossible.”
“I saw her wound.”
“I saw her in a bathing suit a few hours ago.”
Instead of asking for an explanation, Rachel said, “If she was in a one-piece you probably wouldn’t have noticed.”
Cheever’s silence corroborated her guess. “Which personality were you with?” Rachel asked.
He offered the name up reluctantly. “Caitlin.”
“She probably didn’t go swimming.”
“She didn’t.”
“Did she mention having an ‘owie’ or a ‘boo-boo’?”
“No,” he said. The baby talk wasn’t to his liking. It made Caitlin less of a person. Or was it that it made Rachel more of one? He hid his annoyance. “When did this supposed assault take place?”
“Around one a.m.”
The ballpark time when Willie Lamont bought the farm. “If I come over now, are you available to talk?”
