Unidentified Woman #15

by David Housewright

  “She’s going to feel it in the morning,” she said.

  “That’s what happens when you have too much ice cream.”

  “Were you ever going to tell me that Fifteen hit on you?”

  “She didn’t actually hit on me. It was more like she was testing the waters. You can’t blame her—I’m such a fine figure of a man. Besides, if I told you about every attractive woman that tried to pick me up … actually, now that I think about it, it would be a pretty short conversation.”

  “Let’s keep it that way.”

  Nina prepared for bed and I watched because, well, it was one of my favorite things to do. It reminded me of a poem by Page Hill Starzinger, the one where she wrote: I want to squander you.

  “I’ve had this feeling all day,” Nina said. “A feeling that something bad is going to happen. Only I don’t know where it’ll come from, this bad thing. I don’t know which door to lock.”

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s an easy thing to say, harder to do, I know. Worrying, though, isn’t going to help.”

  “You speak from experience.”

  “Trouble is like rain. It’s gonna fall eventually. How we deal with it depends on where we are at the time.”

  “Inside a toasty warm condominium above the city lights or on the street under an umbrella.”

  “Sometimes without an umbrella.”

  “We’ve been together long enough, McKenzie, that I understand this. It’s just … I want to help Fifteen.”

  “So do I.”

  “We can’t actually adopt her, can we?”

  “You’re talking about a woman you’ve known for barely more than a day.”

  “She’s a good person.”

  “How can you tell?”

  Nina tapped the center of her chest.

  “The heart never lies,” she said.

  “Of course it does. That’s what’s wrong with it.”

  FOUR

  Nina was gone a good hour before I decided it was time to rouse our guest. I knocked on the bedroom door. Fifteen grumbled something unintelligible. I carefully balanced a tray with one hand while I opened the door and stepped inside. I set the tray on the table next to the bed.

  “I feel terrible,” Fifteen said.

  “You should see yourself from my side.”

  “Oh, God.”

  I motioned toward the tray.

  “First, the water,” I said. “Rehydrate the body. Second, the fruit smoothie. There’re bananas in it to replace your lost potassium and electrolytes. The egg sandwich. Protein and carbs are a good source of nutrients, plus the eggs contain an amino acid that’ll help break down the toxins in your body and reduce the nausea.”

  “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “Fifteen, I’ve had enough hangovers over the years that I have it down to a science. Exercise is also good, so after you’ve eaten, get dressed. We’ll go for a walk along the river before your appointment.”

  “McKenzie, I don’t want to see your friend. I’m grateful, but—I know exactly what she’s going to say. The same thing the other doctors said. There’s no Hollywood ending for me. Getting hit on the head again isn’t going to restore my memory like it does in the movies. Seeing something or someone familiar, that won’t trigger it either. What she’ll tell me, if it’s physical, the result of damage to the brain, I’ll probably never get it back. If the memory loss was caused by stress, by the trauma of falling off the truck, the memories might still be there inside my head, only I’m subconsciously suppressing them, and getting them back, it’s possible, but it’s going to take a lot of work.”

  “It’s up to you, but sitting around here all day isn’t going to do you any good.”

  “The way I feel right now, sitting around here all day sounds like exactly what I should do. Can we make it some other time, McKenzie—meeting your friend? Would that be all right?”

  “Eat your breakfast.”

  * * *

  Dr. Jillian DeMarais had a suite of offices in One Financial Plaza, about a mile from my place. It seemed like a shame to waste the appointment, which I knew Jill would charge me for anyway, so I strolled over there. It was cold; what else was new? The Cities were hammered by an arctic cold front a couple of days after Thanksgiving and hadn’t experienced a moment above freezing since. The holidays, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, the St. Paul Winter Carnival, and Hockey Day in Minnesota had helped ease the pain, except now it was mid-March and winter was starting to get very, very old indeed. Even knowing that the Twins were working out in Florida wasn’t enough to cheer me up.

  I waited for Jill in her outer office. There were four paintings, one to each wall—a Degas, Matisse, Chagall, and Van Gogh—and not for the first time I wondered if she had ever used them as a kind of Rorschach test. Tell me which painting you like best. Tell me why. In the course of our relationship, I found myself attracted to each one in turn, until I had both accepted and rejected them all. I had no idea what that said about me, and I was afraid to ask.

  At ten fifty-five on the button, the door to her inner office opened, and Jill escorted a sour-looking woman in her early thirties out of the suite with a string of encouraging adverbs. It wasn’t until the woman was gone that Jillian acknowledged my presence.

  “Where’s the patient?” she asked.

  “Decided not to come.”

  She nodded as if it happened all the time.

  Jill motioned for me to enter the inner office. She sat behind her desk, and I took a chair on the opposite side. There was a sofa and a couple more chairs against the far wall, and I wondered briefly about the stories she must hear every day.

  “Tell me about this damsel in distress,” Jill said. There was no “Hello,” no “How are you,” no “You’re looking good.” Jill had always been a no-nonsense kind of woman. It was one of the things I liked about her that eventually helped break us up.

  I told her everything, including what Fifteen had told me just before I left the condo.

  “She’s right,” Jill said. “If she damaged certain areas of the brain, the hippocampus, for example, then no, she probably won’t regain her memories. If the memory loss was caused by psychological disorders, therapy, psychotherapy, becomes a viable option.”

  “Is it possible that she’s faking—”

  “Malingering.”

  “Could she still remember music, for example?”

  “Oh, yes. The community has been trying to figure that one out, but yes, amnesiacs can lose all memory of their past lives—and yet remember music. We think it’s because music memories are stored in a special part of the brain. The superior temporal gyrus or the frontal lobes. There’s a famous conductor in England—”

  “Jill. I’ll take your word for it.”

  “Just trying to give you your money’s worth, McKenzie.”

  “Could she remember the price of things, like, say, a diamond pendant?”

  That caused Jillian to lean back in her chair.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Not everyone is the same. Usually the memory loss is complete. Occasionally … Memory isn’t unitary. There’s more than one kind of memory. Something else that we’re just starting to understand, amnesia doesn’t destroy personal habits.”

  “So if Fifteen was in the habit of pricing objects, she would still be able to do that?”

  “I would really like to meet this woman, McKenzie.”

  “Would she be able to remember something specific, like the first time she rode on an elevator?”

  “I wouldn’t think so, but…”

  “But everyone is different. How can I find out if she really is malingering?”

  Jillian smiled at my use of the word.

  “There is a wide variety of tests available that can help detect patients who fake anterograde amnesia,” she said. “It’s more problematic to assert whether or not a patient is feigning retrograde amnesia. The variables in question tend to be largely out of the examiner’s control. We have an
Autobiographical Memory Interview, which uses samples of personal semantic memories across the patient’s life span, such as information about school days, but that requires cooperation of friends and family members with intimate knowledge about the patient’s life. There is also the Public Events Test, which involves recall and recognition of news events. Unfortunately, none of this is foolproof. Even if strong suspicions occur, it’s difficult to make accurate conclusions without a patient confession, which is rare.”

  “Then there’s nothing I can do?”

  “You can try the Dead or Alive Test.”

  “How does that work?”

  “Get a list, say one hundred names, and ask the patient if that person is alive or dead. If the patient had no memory of these people, then it’ll be like tossing a coin. The results should be near fifty-fifty. However, if the patient scores below chance, below the baseline of genuine amnesiacs, it might be because the malingerer is attempting to sabotage her own performance. In her attempt to prove that she has amnesia, she will score worse than patients with genuine amnesia. It’s not conclusive; you need to remember that, McKenzie. One cannot say with absolute certainty that the patient is simulating without a confession.”

  “How do I get a confession?”

  “You can always ask. From what I remember, McKenzie, you could charm a girl into almost anything.”

  * * *

  The return trip took me past the Depot on Washington Avenue, which was once the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul, and Pacific Depot Freight House and Train Shed before it was converted into a couple of hotels, indoor water park, and ice-skating rink. I liked to look through the huge windows at the skaters gliding across the ice inside. I’ve skated most of my life; still played hockey thirty weeks out of the year with Bobby Dunston and a bunch of friends from our misspent youth. The thought occurred to me—skating is like riding a bicycle. You never forget. If I convinced Fifteen to lace them up, would she remember? Would muscle memory kick in? Assuming she actually did know how to skate. You’d be surprised at the number of people living in Minnesota who can’t. Probably the same percentage as those who are unable to swim despite our 11,842 lakes.

  That’s when I saw it, a white Toyota Corolla parked across the street.

  I might have blown it off as a coincidence except there was a serious-looking young man sitting behind the steering wheel. I might have blown him off, too. I couldn’t identify him as the driver of the Toyota that followed me the day before—if I had been followed. He most definitely was not the man who tailed us across the Stone Arch Bridge. However, the engine was running even though it was clear that he wasn’t going anywhere; clouds of exhaust were being snatched by the wind and pushed across the street. He was just trying to stay warm as he watched—what? I stopped and tried to work out the angles. From where I stood, yeah, he could be conducting surveillance on the front doors of my building as well as the entrance to the underground garage.

  I went back down the avenue, crossed at the light, and came up behind him, debating my options as I walked. The one I settled on was getting his license plate number and running it past Bobby. I slipped the cell phone out of my pocket, took a couple of shots as unobtrusively as I could, and kept walking. The young man continued to stare at my building. He didn’t turn his head to look at me—or anyone else, for that matter.

  I crossed again at the light a block ahead and moved directly to the building, fighting the impulse to glance over my shoulder to see if he was still there. Once I was inside, the security guards swarmed toward me. Smith was the first to speak.

  “We’ve monitored a car driving around the building,” he said. “It circled us four times.”

  “We don’t believe he was looking for a parking space,” Jones said. “There were plenty available.”

  “A white Toyota Corolla?” I asked. I recited the license plate number. “It’s parked a couple blocks down with a clear view of the doors.”

  Smith and Jones glanced at each other. Disappointment etched their faces.

  “I told you we should have walked the perimeter,” Jones said.

  “Do you want us to run the plate?” Smith asked.

  “I got it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I hesitated. They both seemed so earnest, so wanting to be involved. Well, it probably is boring being a security guard watching locked doors all day.

  “Do you have resources?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Smith assured me. “Oh, yes. We do.”

  “Run the plate, then. Don’t do anything foolish, though, okay?”

  I was concerned because not too long ago a woman sued the state for invasion of privacy after she discovered that nearly every law enforcement officer that she had ever encountered—over a hundred guys!—had pulled her record at one time or another for no better reason than to learn her name and marital status. Yes, she was that attractive. She was awarded a million-dollar settlement, and the Department of Public Safety had been clamping down ever since.

  “We’re on it,” Smith said.

  “Just a name and address for now, guys. If we need more, I’ll let you know.”

  Smith and Jones were both smiling when I caught the elevator.

  Spreading joy wherever you go, McKenzie, my inner voice said. What a guy.

  * * *

  The TV was on when I entered the condo; TCM was broadcasting a John Garfield film. I loved old movies and stopped to watch a few scenes. Fifteen was lying on the sofa facing the screen, sound asleep, the remote in her hand. Somehow she had managed to work it, amnesia or no. I slipped the remote from her hand, turned off the TV, and covered her with an afghan that I took from the back of a chair. I went to the PC and started compiling a list of names, one hundred in all, half alive, half dead—it was actually a lot harder than it sounds. While I typed them into a Word document, the landline rang. The sound of it woke Fifteen, who looked around as if unsure where she was or how she got there. Her head snapped toward me when I picked up the receiver and said, “McKenzie.”

  “Mr. McKenzie,” Smith said. “We ran the plate.”

  “Go ’head,” I said. I deliberately ignored his name for fear that Fifteen would know who I was talking to.

  “The owner is Doug Howard, age twenty-four. His permanent address is on Portland Avenue in Richfield, Minnesota. His driving record is clean. Not so much as a parking ticket. Is that helpful?”

  “Very much.”

  “Should we try to get a look at his criminal record?”

  “Not now,” I said. “Maybe later.”

  “Okay.”

  “Thanks for calling.”

  “Anytime.”

  I hung up the phone. Fifteen cocked her head as though she expected an explanation.

  “My insurance guy,” I said. “We’re still working out the details on my car.”

  Fifteen nodded as if she knew it all along.

  How did you become such a good liar? my inner voice asked.

  Practice, practice, practice, I told it.

  “So, how do you feel?” I asked.

  “Much better. Almost normal.”

  “Ahh, to be young again with all recuperative powers still intact.”

  “You’re not that old.”

  “It’s like a used car. It’s not the years, it’s the mileage that counts.”

  Fifteen didn’t say if she agreed or not.

  “Did you see your friend?” she asked.

  “I did.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said pretty much what you told me she’d say. She’d still like to see you, though.”

  “Maybe later, okay?”

  “Okay. In the meantime, one thing Jillian told me is that your memory loss might not be complete. You remember the price of things.” I gestured at the HDTV above the fireplace. “You remember how to use a TV remote.”

  “Actually, it took me a while to figure that out.”

  “She gave me a simple test that might give us an idea of the e
xtent of your memory loss if you’re up to taking it.”

  Fifteen lifted her hands and let them fall to her sides. “Sure,” she said. I had the impression that she was trying to humor me. I explained the test without mentioning that it was designed to detect malingerers and started in.

  “Abraham Lincoln.”

  “Dead.”

  “George Washington.”

  “Alive.”

  “Rod Carew.”

  “Alive.”

  “Brett Favre.”

  “Dead.”

  “Woodrow Wilson.”

  “Dead.”

  “Otis Redding.”

  “Alive.”

  It went on like that for the first fifty names and I noticed she was batting nearly .500—half right, half wrong. That’s when I decided to be a smart guy and threw her the splitter down and away.

  “Doug Howard”—the only nonfamous name on the list.

  She stumbled, started to say “Alive,” corrected herself and said “Dead.”

  I kept going as though nothing had happened. She knew I was onto her, though. In the next fifty names, she got thirty-two wrong and only eighteen correct.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Okay what?”

  “Okay, I’ll give the results to Jillian later and hear what she has to say.”

  I stood up and stretched, trying to appear unconcerned.

  “The names,” Fifteen said. “Were they all famous people?”

  I knew exactly what she was fishing for and gave it to her.

  “Not all,” I said. “Doug Howard—the security guys caught him circling the building earlier and asked if I knew who he was. I didn’t. Do you?”

  “I don’t think so. At least I don’t remember. You say he was watching the building?”

  “That’s what the security guys think. They’re keeping an eye out for him.”

  “Do you think he’s watching because of me?”

  I could have lied, but I wanted to see how she would react.

  “Yes, I do,” I said.

  “How would he know I was here?”

  I shook my head.

  “I thought I was safe,” Fifteen said. “I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  It was her turn for some head shaking.