The Murals

by William Bayer

  She shook her head when I said that. ‘That’s my contribution. You, me, Joan and Tally – we’re a team. Each of us does what he can.’

  I liked that she didn’t plead the usual rich person’s rejoinder: ‘I can afford it; that’s what money’s for.’ But I didn’t tell her that, only that I felt fortunate to have her in my life, that I’d loved her since the day we met, and that I always would.

  That’s when she snuggled against me.

  ‘I like it when you show me your soft side, Jase.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s a change from my phony Hemingway front.’

  ‘Dare I say I was beginning to worry about you the last few months before you found the murals?’

  ‘Because I was so bogged down in Leavings?’

  ‘Because I thought you had Leavings nailed and were unnecessarily spinning your wheels. Like you were afraid to wrap it up.’

  ‘Tally says he was worried about that too. As a matter of fact, I was worried about it myself,’ I confessed.

  Elizabeth (‘Dr Liz’) Schechtner, having retired from her job with the State of New Mexico, had moved north from Santa Fe to a small town, Abiquiú, famous for being the location of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Ghost Ranch, where the artist had lived and painted for many years.

  Cindy Broderick had set us up with Dr Liz, introducing us via telephone. Hannah and I spoke to her twice, so she was fully aware of why we wanted to talk to her. She’d been resistant at first.

  ‘I don’t see why you need to come all this way. We can communicate perfectly well like this.’

  I explained it was important for us to interview her in person. She finally relented, gave us the name of a nearby inn and invited us to come see her ‘on the mesa’ (as she described her house) as soon as we checked in and unpacked.

  Her little house on the mesa couldn’t have been more different from her old Gothic-style residence on Locust. It was up at the end of a rutted bone-dry dirt road, no more than fifty feet from the edge of a thousand-foot-deep chasm, a simple one-story three-room adobe structure with solar panels mounted on the roof. She was waiting for us in front: a short, stout woman with long iron-gray hair framing a lined sunburnt face. She wore a prairie skirt, a linen blouse and a native-style turquoise necklace.

  She greeted us warmly, hugged us both, then immediately led us to the ledge overlooking the chasm and observed us as we took in the drama of the drop.

  The cliffs opposite were multicolored. She told us there were petroglyphs cut into them. She pointed to a ranch down in the valley, which, she told us, belonged to an aging female movie star.

  ‘Most of us up here, we live simply and we’re loners,’ she told us. ‘I used to go down to Santa Fe once a week. I don’t go there now except to see my dentist. And, no – not that you asked – I don’t miss Calista. Haven’t been back since they ran us out of town. Like most folks who move to the south-west, I can’t imagine living anyplace else.’

  She had put out a bowl of thick taco chips and two home-made salsas. The house was lined with bookcases, and the few empty spaces on the walls were crowded with paintings by local artists. A pair of cats wandered around, one black, the other calico.

  ‘Meet Ulysses and Penelope,’ she said. ‘They’re complicated felines. Penelope likes to curl up and play dead, and Ulysses is deep into string theory. A ball of yarn will occupy him for hours. I let them roam outdoors so they can chase away the mice. Far as I know, they haven’t killed any … which is fine with me.’

  There was something good-humored about Dr Liz, a warmth I found hard to resist. She possessed the kind of natural compassion that must have served her well as a therapist. She and Dr Ted had been treated poorly, but except for her throwaway remark about being run out of town, she didn’t seem to harbor resentment against Calista or the people there who’d made it impossible for them to stay.

  ‘Ted was the charismatic one,’ she told us. ‘He probably could have led a cult if he’d wanted to. He had the qualities of a leader and an almost hypnotic effect on the kids. Some worshipped him. I know Courtney and Penny did. They liked me fine, but they were devoted to Ted. He was the one who worked with them. Did he take advantage of that?’ She shrugged. ‘Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, you say those attic murals are a kind of masterpiece. I hope you brought the model. I want very much to see it.’

  She’d never seen the murals! That surprised us. She explained that Ted had worked exclusively with the two girls and was the only one who visited them in the attic. When he described the murals to her, it was clear he didn’t value them as art, but as expressions of emotion.

  ‘He said they were wild,’ she told us, ‘but he never used words like “masterpiece.”’

  I went out to the car, brought back the model, opened it up for her, and studied her as she examined it.

  She appeared stunned. ‘I see what you mean about powerful,’ she finally said. ‘I knew those girls were talented, but I had no idea they were capable of something as strong as this.’

  She said she had no idea what the murals meant, who the figures were or why they seemed so intense and demonic.

  ‘Could they be imaginary?’ she asked. ‘Hard to believe they knew people who looked like this.’

  That remark, coming from a trained psychologist, struck me as willfully dense. Maybe, I thought, Dr Liz knew more about the murals than she was letting on. Exchanging a quick glance with Hannah, I could see she was wondering the same.

  Dr Liz was happy to tell us how the girls had come to Locust Street. Penny, she told us, had been seeing Ted for sessions. He’d been the consulting psychologist at her high school, which specialized in artistic kids, the only public school of its kind in Calista.

  ‘Penny was troubled and had problems at home … like all the kids we were caring for. I don’t remember Ted telling me what her problems were, just that she was very talented and that her teachers had high hopes for her. He found her likeable and not bottled-up about her issues. I also remember him saying something about her being jilted by her boyfriend and that she was understandably depressed about that. These were the kinds of problems we often faced in our practices. Anyway, it was through their sessions at the school that she learned about our halfway house, A Caring Place.

  ‘She spent the summer before her senior year at Red Raven art camp. That’s where she and Courtney met. They became fast friends, and in autumn, when each went back to her respective school, they missed one another and so arranged to get together at the after-school arts program where Penny was enrolled. At this point Penny had stopped seeing Ted, so he was surprised when one day she turned up at our house. She seemed desperate. She told us she and a friend, who turned out to be Courtney Cobb, were miserable in their home situations, and she begged us to take them in. Ted told her to bring her friend around; he’d talk to them both and see what could be done.’

  Liz sighed. ‘They turned up the next afternoon, arriving by bus without any baggage directly from their art class. There was clearly something distraught about Courtney. She was monosyllabic. She had this droopiness about her. I remember thinking she looked beaten down and depressed. The two of them gazed at us with beseeching eyes. You know what kids are like, how manipulative they can be. Two pairs of eyes like that are pretty hard to resist. I guess we were seduced by their neediness and our belief in the efficacy of what we had to offer. So we made a big mistake. At least Ted did. He took Courtney into our little office on the first floor, interviewed her privately, and when they came back out, he told them both we’d take them in, but without mentioning that we’d first need their parents’ consent. We both knew perfectly well we needed that. After they left, I reminded Ted of this, and he promised to take care of it.

  ‘As you know, he didn’t. And I became complicit in that failure. I kept telling him we had to call their folks, if only to assure them their kids were safe. He responded that if we did, he was certain their parents would refuse to let them stay. He’d recognized the Cobb name. He knew she was fro
m a wealthy, socially prominent family. Maybe he was seduced by that, the possibility of working with a kid from such a background. He insisted he’d seen something injured in Courtney, some part of her that was deeply wounded, and that in the half-hour he’d spent with her, he’d learned very disturbing things about her home life. He reminded me that when girls that age are messed-up, there’s a ninety-nine percent chance there’s something bad going on within the family. And, he reminded me, he already knew stuff about Penny’s home life. “We can’t deny them,” he said, insisting that it was our duty to give them shelter. “They’re almost eighteen. In a few months they’ll be adults. Right now, they qualify to become liberated minors.” Ted could be very persuasive. Even now, I’m not sure why he was so intent on breaking the rules, putting our reputations and livelihoods at risk. For me, the issue is why did I go along with him? I still can’t answer that.’

  She stared at my model of the murals, then bent to examine it closely.

  ‘I guess the reason’s in here. Having them paint on the walls was Ted’s idea. He had the windows boarded up so they’d have an unobstructed surface. He was a great believer in getting patients to visually express their issues, while I was more of a classical talk-therapy type.’

  I told her that Cindy said she used to speak of dealing with personal demons.

  Liz smiled. ‘That’s true. I’d tell the kids to wrestle with them, pin them down, vanquish them.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound much like classical talk therapy,’ Hannah said.

  ‘Well, maybe not. Ted influenced me. I adopted some of his methods, the ones I thought worked, and in return I kept him (his word) “grounded.” We worked well together for quite a few years. I believe we did productive work, helping kids deal with their pain. But then it all blew up, and afterwards we were never able to get our mojo back. Plus nobody would touch us. Our reputations were in tatters. And all because we arrogantly believed we could get away with something we both knew was absolutely wrong.’

  ‘You say you were complicit. Is that because you failed to “ground” him on this?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, I failed him, I failed us both.’ She paused. ‘We paid a very heavy price for that.’

  The sun was setting. Suddenly, the little room was aglow. The uneven cream-colored stucco walls danced with orange light. Liz brightened up at that. She told us that she’d had the house built so that the sun would set inside her living room.

  ‘It’ll start getting cold soon. I’ll light the fire.’

  She went over to the kiva built into the corner and lit the kindling. We sat in silence for a while, watching as the light seeped out of the room and the sunset faded from the sky. Soon there was no light except the glow of the kiva. I stood up.

  ‘This has been intense. Let’s call it a night, talk more tomorrow.’

  Liz nodded. ‘I’ll try to think back. Maybe in the morning I’ll remember more.’

  Hannah and I had dinner at a restaurant Liz recommended in Ojo Caliente, a hot-springs resort twenty miles north-east of Abiquiú. It was a lovely place with a series of open-air spring-fed pools.

  Over our meal we discussed Liz, the things she told us and the things she hadn’t.

  ‘I saw you were surprised when she claimed she’d never gone up to the attic,’ Hannah said.

  ‘Yeah, and that Ted never discussed the girls’ problems. I’d think that psychologists who practiced together would consult on their cases all the time. These two were married, with each other twenty-four/seven. How could they not have discussed the girls’ issues?’

  ‘She says she blames herself for not insisting they call the parents. Not sure I buy her rap that Ted was “seduced” by Courtney’s status, and that she still can’t figure out why she went along with him on not calling them. I have a hunch they were both equally seduced. They saw an opportunity and unwisely took advantage of it.’

  ‘Could be,’ I said. ‘But what kind of opportunity? Maybe a chance to be at the center of a major case, expose a scandal involving prominent wealthy people, or, maybe, not exposing it … for a price.’

  ‘Hard to believe.’

  ‘But not impossible. Which brings us back to the girls. I think she knows very well what their issues were, and that’s what made them think they were on to something.’

  ‘Not sure what you mean,’ Hannah said.

  I took a couple of bites then ventured a theory.

  ‘Suppose Courtney’s troubles were so explosive – maybe Penny’s too – so explosive that the Schechtners believed that justified their risking so much by breaking a basic rule of their profession.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Yeah, I know – if they had info that explosive, why didn’t they offer it in their defense? Well, maybe they did. Suddenly, the prosecutors drop their complaints, and the Schechtners get off and leave town. Maybe there was some sort of deal – “we’ll keep quiet about what we know about certain things in return for you dropping all the charges and the Cobb family throwing in some money to sweeten the pot so we can start over someplace else.”’

  ‘You really think the Cobbs paid them off?’

  ‘We know they paid Cindy and Loetz. That’s what rich people do.’

  Hannah gulped. ‘Sure, but taking money from them would’ve been a huge betrayal of the girls. Would they really do something that nefarious?’

  ‘Their hands were dirty. No matter how things went at trial, they were certain to lose their licenses. Anyway, the Cobb girl was back under her family’s control. They had no idea where she’d been taken and no way to communicate with her. If it was a choice between fighting an unwinnable battle and losing their licenses, or abandoning the girls and saving their own skins, I can imagine them doing what I said.’

  ‘That’s speculation.’

  ‘Sure, but now that we’re here, maybe we can get to the bottom of it.’

  ‘She’s such a nice lady. I’d find it hard to crowd her.’

  ‘We don’t have to crowd her, Hannah. Just draw her out. Remember how good Cindy felt after she confessed? I think Liz would feel good too if she told us the truth.’

  ‘Seems like this is turning into a story about what was going on with those girls, what was in their heads.’

  ‘That’s exactly what it is. Because that’s the key to the murals.’

  The next morning things didn’t go as we expected. Dr Liz changed tack. After listening to our thanks for her suggesting we dine at Ojo Caliente, she tried to turn the tables on me. Seemed she was done playing the mea culpa card.

  ‘Forgive me for prying, Jason, but I have to ask – what is it about those murals that has you so riled up? Why are you so fascinated by them?’

  I was affronted. ‘You think I have an ulterior motive?’

  ‘As a psychologist, I always seek to understand what drives people – not their ostensible reasons but the deeper ones they may not be aware of.’

  I stared at her. ‘How can I answer if I’m unaware?’

  ‘Oh dear, I see I’ve offended you. I was just putting my thoughts out there. I didn’t realize you’d be so touchy.’

  She stood, excused herself, went into the kitchen to fetch more coffee. As soon as she left the room, Hannah shook her head.

  ‘Calm down,’ she whispered. ‘Let her play the psychologist. Show her some respect.’

  When Liz came back with a steaming pot, I apologized for acting defensive. ‘You touched a nerve. I’ve been wondering myself why the murals mean so much to me.’

  She nodded, relaxed, smiled at me. ‘Thanks for saying that. Clearly, the murals are important to you both. I agree they’re powerful. But when something is so powerful that it drives an obsession, we must ask ourselves why.’

  I let her carry on in this vein, knowing sooner or later she’d run out of steam. I had a hunch her attempt to take control of the dialogue was her way to distract us from probing into matters she didn’t wish to discuss.

  ‘Do you still have your case files on the girls?’
Hannah asked.

  ‘Oh, no!’ she said. ‘Ted shredded everything before we left. He said we owed that to our patients. He didn’t want our files to fall into the wrong hands.’

  Hannah leaned forward. ‘Here’s what’s bothering us, Liz – you and Ted were married and in practice together, yet he didn’t confide in you regarding these girls beyond the obvious fact that they were troubled.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ve heard of patient confidentiality.’

  ‘Between a husband and wife – that seems a bit far-fetched.’

  I understood Hannah had meant to speak gently, but her words cut hard at Liz. She began to tear up, then turned away and let out with a convulsive moan.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Hannah said. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just—’

  ‘I know, I know …’ Liz shook her head as if to clear it. ‘It is far-fetched. I realize that. Of course it is! I mean, how could it not seem so?’

  Suddenly, the story spewed out of her: how difficult Ted had been even back when they were living on Locust, how secretive and proprietary he’d been about his patients, ignoring her questions, deflecting them, demanding to know why she asked them, suggesting that she wanted to invade his clinical relationships in order to disparage his unorthodox techniques and/or because of envy at his successes.

  ‘He was always paranoid. When we moved out here, his paranoia became worse. It got to the point when I couldn’t stand it anymore, when we couldn’t stand each other. That’s when we parted ways. I don’t know what he was doing with those girls. He refused to tell me, refused even to describe their issues. All he’d say was “They’re working it out. You should see what they’re painting in the attic. You wouldn’t believe it.” But when I asked if I could go up to there and see for myself what he was talking about, he became agitated. “Don’t you dare go up there! That’ll ruin everything! You’ll upset them, pull them back. They’ll lose their momentum and never regain it.” It was crazy talk.’ She shook her head. ‘I’ve never told this to anyone, not even to Ted, but when the cops burst in and dragged the girls away, I was actually relieved. Finally, it’s over, I thought. Whatever he’s been up to with them is finished now.’