Jonathan Kellerman - Alex 03 - Over the Edge

by Over the Edge

  'Who are you?' The accent was crisp and British.

  I stood up and introduced myself.

  'Ah, yes. The psychologist. Mrs. Vann told me about Jamey's call to you. I'm Dr. Mainwaring.'

  He shook my hand vigorously but mechanically.

  'It was good of you to drive all the way out here, but I'm afraid I can't talk with you at length. Have to put things in order.' Then, as if contradicting himself, he leaned closer. 'What did the boy have to say over the phone?'

  'Not much that made sense. He was extremely anxious and seemed to be experiencing auditory hallucinations. Pretty much out of control.'

  Mainwaring made a show of listening, but it was obvious that nothing I'd said surprised him.

  'How long's he been this way?' I asked.

  'Quite some time.' He looked at his watch. 'Sad case. Apparently he was extremely bright once.'

  'He was a genius. Off the scale.'

  He scratched his nose. 'Yes. One wouldn't know it now.'

  'That bad?' I asked, hoping he'd say more.

  'Quite.'

  'He was moody,' I recalled, trying to get a dialogue going. 'Complex - which you'd expect, given his intellectual level. But there was no indication of psychosis. If I had predicted anything, it would have been depression. What precipitated the breakdown? Drugs?'

  He shook his head.

  'Sudden onset schizophrenia. If I understood the etiologic process' - he smiled, revealing an Englishman's tea-stained teeth - 'I'd be waiting for the call from Stockholm.'

  The smile faded quickly.

  'I'd best be off,' he said, as if talking to himself, 'to see if

  he's turned up. I've avoided drawing the authorities into this - for the sake of the family. Bit if our people don't find him soon, I may have to call the police. It gets quite cold in the mountains, and we can't have him catching pneumonia.'

  He turned to go.

  'Would you mind if I waited around to see him?'

  'I'm afraid that wouldn't be advisable, Dr. Delaware -confidentiality and all that. I appreciate your concern and regret your driving out here for nothing. But before anything else, the family needs to be notified - which may take some doing. They're in Mexico on holiday, and you know the phones down there.' His eyes darted distractedly. 'Perhaps we can chat at some later date - once the proper releases have been signed.'

  He was correct. I had no right - legally or professionally - to a shred of information on Jamey. Even the moral prerogatives were vague. He'd called me for help, but what was that worth? He was crazy, incapable of making rational choices.

  And yet he'd been rational enough to plot and carry out his escape, sufficiently intact to obtain my number.

  I looked at Mainwaring and knew that I'd have to live with the questions. Even if he had the answers, he wouldn't be doling them out.

  He took my hand again and pumped it, muttered something apologetic, and rushed off. He'd been cordial, collegial and had told me nothing.

  I stood alone in the empty waiting room. The sound of shuffling feet made me turn. Edwards, the guard, had waddled in, somewhat unsteadily. He threw me a feeble imitation of a tough guy stare and fondled his billy club. From the look on his face it was clear he blamed me for all his troubles.

  Before he could verbalise his feelings, I saw myself to the door.

  I GOT home at five forty-five. Robin was sleeping, so I sat in the living room and watched the sun wipe the tarnish from a sterling silver sky. By six-fifteen she was up and humming, draped in a wine-coloured kimono. I went into the bedroom, and we embraced. She drew away and cupped my chin with her hand. Taking in my unshaven face and rumpled clothes, she looked at me, incredulous.

  'You've been up all this time!'

  'I got back a few minutes ago.'

  'Oh, honey, you must be exhausted. What happened?'

  'When I got there, he was gone. Escaped. I stayed for a while, hoping they'd find him.'

  'Escaped? How?'

  'He knocked out his nurse, tied her up, and split. Probably went up into the foothills.'

  'That's spooky. Is this kid dangerous, Alex?'

  'He could be,' I admitted reluctantly. 'The head nurse implied as much without coming out and saying so - told me the ward he was on was reserved for unpredictable

  patients. On the phone he was ranting about flesh eaters and reeking blades.'

  She shuddered. 'I hope they find him soon.

  'I'm sure they will. He couldn't get too far.'

  She began laying out her clothes. 'I was going to make breakfast,' she said, 'but if you're beat, I can grab something in Venice.'

  'I'm not hungry, but I'll keep you company.'

  'You sure? You look awfully beat.'

  'Positive. I'll sleep after you leave.'

  She dressed for work in jeans, chambray shirt, crew-neck sweater, and Top-Siders, making the outfit look as elegant as an evening gown. Her long auburn-tinted hair has the kind of bouncy, soft curl obtainable only from nature. This morning she wore it loose, glossy ringlets tumbling over delicate shoulders; at work she would bunch it up under a cloth cap. All sixty-two inches of her moved with a liquid grace that never ceased to catch my eye. Looking at her, you'd never know she was an ace with a circular saw, but that was part of what had attracted me to her in the first place: strength and mastery in a totally feminine package, the ability to forge beauty amid the roar of lethal machinery. Even covered with sawdust, she was gorgeous.

  She sprayed herself with something floral and kissed my chin. 'Ouch. You need a sanding.'

  Arms around each other, we went into the kitchen.

  'Sit,' she ordered, and proceeded to prepare breakfast -bagels, marmalade, and a pot of decaffeinated Kona coffee. The room was sun-filled and warm, soon seasoned by the burgeoning aroma of the coffee. Robin laid out two place settings on the ash-burl trestle table she'd built last winter, and I carried the food in on a tray.

  We sat opposite each other, sharing the view. A family of doves cooed and pecked on the terrace below. The gurgle of the fish pond was barely audible. Robin's heart-shaped face was lightly made up - just a trace of shadow over the eyes the colour of antique mahogany - the olive-tinted skin smooth and burnished by the last remnants of summer tan.

  She spread marmalade on half a bagel with quick, sure strokes and offered it to me.

  'No, thanks. Just coffee for now.'

  She ate slowly and with obvious pleasure, rosy, alert, and bristling with energy.

  'You look raring to go,' I said.

  'Uh-huh,' she replied between mouthfuls. 'Got a big day. Bridge reset on Paco Valdez's concert box, finish a twelve-string, and get a mandolin ready for spraying. I'm gonna come home stinking of varnish.' 'Great. I love a smelly woman.'

  She'd always been industrious and self-directed, but since returning from Tokyo, she'd been a dynamo. A Japanese musical conglomerate had offered her a lucrative position as a design supervisor, but after much deliberation she'd turned it down, knowing she preferred craftsmanship to mass production. The decision had renewed her dedication, and twelve-hour days at the Venice studio were becoming the rule.

  'Hungry yet?' she asked, holding out another bagel half. I took it and chewed absently; for all I tasted it could have been warm modelling clay. I put it down and saw her shake her head and smile.

  'Your lips are drooping, Alex.' 'Sorry.'

  'Don't be. Just get yourself into bed, fella.' She finished her coffee, stood, and began clearing the table. I retreated to the bedroom, peeling out of my clothes in transit. After drawing the drapes, I slunk between the sheets and lay on my back. I'd been staring at the ceiling for several minutes when she stuck her head in.

  'Still up? I'm going now. Be back around seven. How about dinner out?' 'Sure.'

  'I have a craving for Indian. Does varnish go with tandoori chicken?'

  'It does if you've got the right wine.' She laughed, fluffed her hair, came over, and kissed my forehead. 'Catch you later, sweetie.'
/>   After she left, I slept for a couple of hours. I awoke feeling fuzzy, but a shower and a glass of orange juice made me feel semi-human.

  Dressed in jeans and a polo shirt, I went into the library to work. My desk was stacked with papers. It had never been like me to procrastinate, but I was still unaccustomed to being busy.

  Three years earlier, at thirty-three, I'd fled burnout by retiring prematurely from the practice of psychology. My plan had been to loaf and live off investments indefinitely, but the leisurely life ended up being far more exciting - and bloody - than I could have known. One year and a reconstructed jaw later, I crawled out of my cave and began working part-time - accepting a few court-ordered custody evaluations and short-term consultations. Now, though still not ready for the commitment of long-term therapy cases, I'd increased my consult load to where I felt like a working-man again.

  I stayed at the desk until one, finishing two reports to judges, then drove into Brentwood to have them typed, photocopied, and mailed. I stopped at a place on San Vicente for a sandwich and a beer and, while waiting for the food to arrive, used a pay phone to call Canyon Oaks. I asked the operator if Jamey Cadmus had been found yet, and she referred me to the day shift supervisor, who referred me to Mainwaring. His secretary told me he was in conference and wouldn't be available until late afternoon. I left my service number and asked him to return the call.

  My table was near the window. I watched joggers in peacock-hued sweat suits huff along the grassy median and picked at my lunch. Leaving most of it on the plate, I paid the bill and drove back home.

  Returning to the library, I unlocked one of the cabinets under the bookshelves. Inside were several cardboard cartons packed with the files of former patients. It took a while to find Jamey's - I'd vacated my office with haste, and the alphabetisation was haphazard - but soon I had it in my hands.

  Sinking down in the old leather sofa, I began to read. As I turned the pages, the past materialised through the haze of data. Soon vague recollections began to take on shape and form; they rushed in noisily, like poltergeists, evoking a clamour of memories.

  I'd met Jamey while consulting on a research study of highly gifted children conducted at UCLA. The woman who ran the grant had a thing about the genius-insanity stereotype: She was out to disprove it. The project emphasised intensive academic stimulation of its young subjects -college-level work for ten-year-olds, teenagers earning doctorates - and though critics charged that such super-acceleration was too stressful for tender minds, Sarita Flowers believed just the opposite: Boredom and mediocrity were the real threats to the kids' well-being. ('Feed the brain to keep it sane, Alex.') Certain that the data would support her hypothesis, she asked me to monitor the mental health of the whiz kids. For the most part, that meant casual rap groups and a counselling session now and then.

  With Jamey it had evolved into something more.

  I reviewed my notes from our first session and recalled how surprised I'd been when he showed up at my door wanting to talk. Of all the kids in the project, he'd seemed the least open, enduring group discussions with a distant look on his pale, round face, never volunteering information, responding to questions with shrugs and noncommittal grunts. Sometimes his detachment stretched to retreating between the pages of a volume of poetry while the others chattered precociously. I wondered, now, if those asocial tendencies had been a warning sign of things to come.

  It had been a Friday - the day I spent on campus. I'd been examining test data in my temporary office when I heard the knock, soft and tentative.

  In the time it took me to get to the door he'd backed away into the corridor, and now stood pressed against the wall as if trying to recede into the plaster. He was almost

  thirteen, but slightness of build and a baby face made him appear closer to ten. He wore a blue and red striped rugby shirt and dirty jeans and clutched a book bag stuffed so full the seams had spread. His black hair was worn long with the bangs cut ruler-straight. Prince Valiant style. His eyes were slate-coloured - blueberries floating in milk - and too large for a face that was soft and round and at odds with his skinny body.

  He shifted his weight and stared at his sneakers.

  'If you don't have time, forget it,' he said.

  'I have plenty of time, Jamey. Come on in.'

  He nibbled his upper lip and entered, standing back stiffly as I closed the door.

  I smiled and offered him a seat. The office was small, and the options were limited. There was a musty, moth-eaten green couch of Freudian vintage on the other side of the desk and a scarred steel-framed chair perpendicular to it. He chose the couch, sitting next to his book bag and hugging it as if it were a lover. I took the chair and straddled it backwards.

  'What can I do for you, Jamey?'

  His eyes took off in flight, scanning every detail of the room, finally settling on the tables and graphs crowding the desk top.

  'Data analysis?'

  'That's right.'

  'Anything interesting?'

  'Just numbers at this point. It'll be a while before patterns emerge - if there are any.'

  'Kind of reductionistic, don't you think?' he asked.

  'In what way?'

  He fidgeted with one of the straps on the book bag. 'You know - testing us all the time, reducing us to numbers, and pretending the numbers tell the truth.'

  He leaned forward earnestly, suddenly intense. I didn't yet know why he'd come but was certain it hadn't been to discuss research design. A great deal of courage building had preceded the knock on my door, and no doubt, a rush of ambivalence had followed. For him the world of ideas

  was a safe place, a fortress against intrusive and disturbing feelings. I made no attempt to storm the fortress.

  'How so, Jamey?'

  He kept one hand on the book bag. The other waved like a pennant in a storm.

  'Take IQ tests, for example. You pretend that the scores mean something, that they define genius or whatever it is we're supposed to be. Even the name of the study is reductionistic. "Project 160". Like anyone who doesn't score a hundred sixty on a Stanford-Binet can't be a genius? That's pretty lame! All the tests do is predict how well someone will do in school. They're unreliable, culturally biased and according to my reading, aren't even that good at predicting - thirty, maybe forty percent accuracy. Would you put your money on a horse that came in a third of the time? Might as well use a Ouija board!'

  'You've been doing some research,' I said, suppressing a smile.

  He nodded gravely.

  'When people do things to me, I like to understand what it is they're doing. I spent a few hours in the psych library.' He looked at me challengingly. 'Psychology's not much of a science, is it?'

  'Some aspects are less scientific than others.'

  'You know what I think? Psychologists - ones like Dr. Flowers - like to translate ideas into numbers in order to look more scientific and impress people. But when you do that, you lose the essence, the' - he hugged at his bangs and searched for the right word - 'the soul of what it is you're trying to understand.'

  'It's a good point,' I said. 'Psychologists themselves have been arguing about it for a long time.'

  He didn't seem to hear me and continued expounding in a high, child's voice.

  'I mean, what about art - or poetry? How can you quantify poetry? By the number of verses? The metre? How many words end with e? Would that define or explain Chatterton or Shelley or Keats? That would be stupid. But psychologists think they can do the same kind of thing to

  people and come up with something meaningful.'

  He stopped, caught his breath, then went on.

  'It seems to me that Dr. Flowers has a fetish for numbers. And machines. She loves her computers and her tachisto-scopes. Probably wishes we were mechanical, too. More predictable.' He worried a cuticle. 'Maybe it's because she herself needs contraptions to live a normal life. What do you think?'

  'It's a theory.'

  His smile was mirthless.
/>
  'Yeah, I forgot. The two of you are partners in this. You have to defend her.'

  'Nope. When you guys talk to me, it's confidential. Test data - the numbers - go into the computer, but anything else stays out. If you're angry at Dr. Flowers and want to talk about it, go ahead.'

  He took his time digesting that.

  'Nah, I'm not angry at her. I just think she's a sad lady. Didn't she used to be an athelete or something?'

  'She was a figure skater. Won a gold medal at the 'sixty-four Olympics.'