Prodigy

by Charles Atkins

  “Was … she was in the system. Before I tell you anything more, I need you to tell me why this is so important.”

  “I’m not certain,” Barrett confessed. “This could be a dead end, but Gordon Mayfield, in his case study—however unethical it might have been—got further with Jimmy Martin than anyone else.”

  “Because he cheated and used Amytal,” Housmann said.

  “Yes.”

  “That was Gordon in a nutshell. The fastest line between two points—and if morals stood in the way he’d just go through them. But you were saying …”

  “Mayfield not only discovered what Jimmy was doing in Nicole Foster’s apartment, he also got to a good piece of the why.”

  “I still don’t see what that has to do with knowing the name of the woman Mayfield was screwing.”

  “I think that Jimmy had something to do with Mayfield’s death.”

  “You need to redo your math; Martin would have still been in Croton when Mayfield jumped. Unless …”

  “Exactly,” Barrett said, knowing that the elder psychiatrist had made the logical conclusion. “He had someone else do it for him. He’s like a two-headed animal. The only problem is every time one of his heads gets cut off—like Mason Carter—he grows a new one.”

  “Like the hydra,” Housmann commented. “And of course there was his sister. I thought she had the makings of a good slander case against Mayfield. But I also doubted whether she’d bring such a sordid piece of business into court. That was part of Mayfield’s gift. He made these excursions into the world of the morally bereft, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew that Jimmy Martin would be recognized by anyone familiar with the case. He also figured the family wouldn’t do a thing about it, for fear of publicity. But maybe they had other resources. Ellen Martin struck me as a most capable young woman. And now that I think of it, her calls stopped the day that Mayfield jumped …” he was about to say something further and then stopped.

  “Or was pushed,” Barrett offered.

  “As you say …”

  “The woman who called me tried to disguise her voice. Which makes me think she had reason to believe that I’d recognize her.”

  “And you think this was the woman Mayfield was involved with?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “It is,” he admitted. “What will you do if I give you her name?”

  “Try to talk with her.”

  Housmann turned away from Barrett and stared out the windows. “I always thought it was a bad idea.”

  “What was?”

  “Giving her the job.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “Of course not. Why do women end up at Croton?” he asked abruptly.

  “Because they’ve committed a violent crime and for whatever reason are found either not competent to stand trial because of mental illness, or they go to court and are found not guilty by reason of …”

  “Not that,” he said dismissively. “What kinds of crimes land women in Croton?”

  “Crimes of passion,” she answered. “Is that what you mean?”

  “Do better. What separates the men from the women?”

  Barrett pictured the faces of women she’d interviewed over the years. “The victim,” she finally answered. “They hurt the ones closest to them; typically their husbands, boyfriends, and occasionally their children and parents.”

  “Right. I often found the women to be far more the victim than the perpetrator.”

  “Please, Dr. Housmann, I need to know her name.”

  “Humor me,” he said. “I just wanted to be certain that you’d be careful. The woman in question spent a number of years at Croton after accidentally killing her abusive husband. Mayfield worked very hard to have her released. In hindsight I should have known something was up. Gordon Mayfield was no altruist.”

  “You mentioned giving her a job,” Barrett commented. “Where was that job?”

  “I think you’ve figured it out,” Housmann answered.

  “At the center?”

  “Right in one.”

  “Who is she?”

  Housmann brought his hands together and touched his fingertips to his chin, “Marla Dean,” he said.

  “Marla?”

  He nodded. “I knew it was a bad idea, but I couldn’t see punishing her for Mayfield’s doing, and then when he … died, I didn’t have the heart to fire her. It would have been too complicated, and so …”

  “How long was she at the clinic before Mayfield’s death?” Barrett asked.

  “A while, certainly more than a year.”

  “But she would have been at Croton when Jimmy was there?”

  “Yes.”

  “And she would have known who Mayfield’s test subjects were?”

  “Probably.” Housmann sighed, “I think she typed his papers for him, and as you’ve seen, the case studies were easy to figure out.”

  “Dr. Housmann,” Barrett said, pulling her briefcase on to her lap. “I want to thank you for your time. But I think I should be going.”

  “Of course,” he said, not moving from his chair.

  “What is it?” she asked, sensing there was more.

  “About a year after Mayfield’s death. I got another call from Ellen Martin. She wanted me to try and get her brother released. She was very persuasive, and without coming straight out and offering me a bribe, she informed me that it would be very easy to underwrite my research through a foundation her family financed. A foundation that would never be traced back to her brother. Of course, I declined. Every year or so, I’d get a similar phone call, and my answer was always the same. A year after I retired and Anton had taken over as director, Jimmy Martin obtained his release.”

  “You think Anton took the offer?” she asked, feeling a pit form in her stomach.

  “I couldn’t say. I do know that Anton’s time is running out; I don’t think he’ll get tenure. As far as his research goes, it’s careful, but it’s small in scope and lacks any spark—unlike yours. Ellen Martin’s offer would have been difficult to resist.”

  Barrett said nothing as she took this in, and jagged bits of data clicked into place. It felt as though the floor were dropping out from under her. “I should get going.”

  “Dr. Conyors … Barrett?”

  “Yes,” she was halfway out of her seat.

  “Do you have any hard evidence? Anything at all to take to the board?”

  “I don’t,” she admitted.

  “That’s not good,” he shook his head, his expression worried.

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” she said, trying to make light, to not be so afraid.

  “You need to drop this case,” he said.

  “I know … I can’t.”

  “This could end very badly.”

  “I have to get him sent back,” she replied, but knowing he was right.

  “Is there anything I could say that would make you reconsider?”

  She shook her head. “He needs to be locked up; he should never have been let out. If I don’t do it …”

  He stared at her through the thick, distorting lenses. “I suppose in your position, I’d do the same.” He suddenly seemed tired, defeated. “I’ll see you out,” he raised out of his chair, wincing slightly from having sat so long. As he unlocked his front door, he commented, “I very much enjoyed our talk. If you ever want a sounding board, I hope you’ll call.”

  “Thank you,” she said, stepping back onto the liquid-filled mat.

  “And Barrett …”

  “Yes?”

  “I know that I don’t have to say this, but be very careful. And the minute you get the evidence you need, take it to the board and get far away from Jimmy Martin ... and his sister.”

  TWENTY

  “Marla, could you come in here?” Barrett asked over the telephone.

  A breathy voice responded, “Give me a couple minutes, Dr. Conyors.”

  Barrett clasped her hands beneath her chin and waited. She wanted
to call Hobbs, and share the information from Housmann. And yes, she admitted to herself, she wanted the reassurance of his physicality, his humor. But there was something else he had that she needed. It was a difference in logic that made him a brilliant detective. Prior to the catastrophe that had ruined his career, he’d rocketed through the bureau and achieved the rarely granted rank of Detective First Class. His promotion to deputy chief was based on years of superb work that ran the gamut from high-profile serial killers to overseeing the investigation in a white-collar investment scam that could have left thousands of city employees robbed of their pensions.

  While Barrett spent her days working with criminals, the mentally ill, and the sociopathic, her job didn’t require setting traps—Ed’s did. Typically the folks she worked with had already been caught. Any traps were merely a clarification of the perpetrator’s thought process and motive. Jimmy, however, needed to be caught. She needed something concrete that could override the obstacles Anton might now erect.

  Her hand hovered over the telephone.

  A tentative knock came.

  “Yes?” Barrett called out.

  “Dr. Conyors,” the door cracked open and Marla Dean’s little girl voice wafted across the office. “You wanted to see me?”

  Barrett stared at the six inches of space in the doorway. All she could see of Marla were the tips of three nail-bitten fingers curled around the edge.

  “Come in,” Barrett said, not certain how to proceed with the skittish secretary. “If you could close the door and sit down.”

  Marla did as instructed; her long dark hair shadowed her face as she sat expectantly.

  Barrett smiled and looked at Marla, as the painfully thin woman sat tentative, her collar bones sharply visible through the neckline of her gray polyester blouse. “You’ve done something different with your hair?”

  “I got rid of the gray,” she admitted.

  “It’s good … you’ve been here a long time,” Barrett commented as she slowly opened her top desk drawer.

  “Yes,” the secretary looked around, as her hands struggled to find a position of comfort. They reminded Barrett of birds in search of a safe perch: should they land on her lap? The chair? Should they hold each other or would they continually flutter about at the end of her bony arms, never finding a place to rest?

  “How long?” Barrett persisted as she pretended to hunt for a chart.

  “Almost fourteen years,” she whispered.

  Barrett paused, “I bet you’ve seen a lot.”

  “We don’t see much out there.”

  “Do you remember Dr. Housmann?” Barrett asked.

  Marla nodded her head, “I think I should go back out and help Violet.”

  “I won’t be much longer … you know I saw him recently.”

  “Dr. Housmann?”

  “Yes, we talked about you.”

  “Why would you do that?” Marla gasped.

  Barrett tried to make eye contact; the secretary looked away. “We talked about Gordon Mayfield, and your name came up.”

  Marla Dean stood abruptly, turned, and reached for the doorknob.

  “Don’t!” Barrett said.

  Marla froze.

  Barrett persisted, “I think you know why I’m bringing this up.”

  With her hand on the door and her back into the room Marla spoke, “It was a long time ago.”

  “I know. Now please sit down; I won’t keep you long.”

  “I have work to do,” the secretary pleaded.

  “It won’t take long.” Barrett waited as Marla slowly turned around. She found herself guessing at the woman’s age. An old forty or a young sixty? She wore an inexpensive gray blouse and dull-green cotton skirt, her synthetic-leather shoes looked as though they might have come from a 14th Street five-dollar bin. Marla clasped her hands together and with her eyes fixed on the floor, she waited.

  “How long did you know Dr. Mayfield?” Barrett asked.

  “Why do you have to bring this up?” Marla asked. “It was a long time ago.”

  “I know,” Barrett said, “but it has bearing on a case I’m currently working on.”

  “Jimmy Martin,” Marla whispered.

  “Yes. So you know about the connection?” Barrett asked, while trying to reconcile Marla’s wispy voice with that of her mystery caller. “Tell me what you know about that.”

  “I helped him.”

  “Who?”

  “Gordon. He couldn’t type.” Marla dabbed at the corners of her down-turned eyes with the back of her sleeve.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t want to talk about this. I should have found another job after he … died. But it’s like I was frozen here and Dr. Housmann told me that it wouldn’t be necessary, that it wasn’t my fault; so I stayed.”

  “So how did you know about Jimmy?”

  “Gordon told me who they all were. I didn’t know that was something he wasn’t supposed to do. But Gordon didn’t care a lot about other people’s rules. If he had, he’d never have loved me.”

  Barrett reached across her desk and retrieved a mostly empty box of tissues. “Here,” she handed them to Marla. “You loved him?”

  “At first I thought he just wanted to have sex with me. He made so many promises, but then I guess he must have fallen in love with me.” She said the last words slowly, testing them out like they were a piece of thin ice that might not hold her weight. “He told me that he loved me, but men say that.”

  “They do,” Barrett agreed. “What made him different?”

  “His actions. ‘By their fruit you shall know them’,” Marla answered. “He got me out of that place, found me a job, never hit me, and if he was seeing other women I never found out about it.”

  Barrett listened as Marla laid out her criteria for a good man. “Did you love him?”

  “I’m crying, aren’t I?”

  “Yes, but tears can mean different things.”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered letting her long hair fall forward, hiding her sharp features behind its curtain. “Everyone talks about love, but I don’t know what it is. Maybe I loved Gordon, maybe I was just grateful. I cried when he died. After all these years I still cry when I think about him. So I try not to think about him.”

  “Do you know why he jumped?”

  “He didn’t jump!” Marla said, her voice taking on an uncharacteristic force.

  “How can you know?” Barrett asked, wondering at the change.

  “I knew Gordon; that’s how I know. People kill themselves because they can’t see a future; Gordon lived in his future. He had so many plans, so many things he was going to do. That’s one thing about men, and a lot about Gordon, they talk about themselves. I thought he was so smart, I liked to listen to his plans. Sometimes I’d even tell myself that he’d marry me and I’d start to see a future too. But I knew that was never going to happen.”

  “How come?”

  “Look at what happened when people found out about us. I didn’t know it was so wrong.”

  “Maybe that’s why he jumped?” Barrett offered, and immediately regretted her lack of tact.

  “No,” Marla stated.

  “How can you be so certain?”

  “He told me that it didn’t matter, that they’d give him a slap on the wrist and as long as I kept my mouth shut, nothing would happen.”

  “He could have lost his job, maybe his license to practice.”

  Marla glanced up quickly. She shook her head, “I’m sure you know what you’re talking about, but that’s not how he saw it. I just figured he’d stop seeing me; I’d keep my mouth shut, I owed him that. I even started to look for another job, but it’s not easy for me. Maybe now I could do it, but back then … .How do you tell an employer why you were at Croton for four years? At least here it wasn’t such a big deal. Only Gordon and Dr. Housmann knew.”

  “Why were you at Croton?”

  “You don’t know; Housmann didn’t tell you?”

&n
bsp; “A little, but I’d rather hear it from you.”

  “Why? It’s ancient history, better to leave it alone.”

  Barrett wondered, was there a warning in her words? While this voice was different from her caller, the message sounded similar. “You don’t have to tell me,” Barrett offered, “but it could help me with my case.”

  “Jimmy Martin, again. I should have known. I told him not to use Jimmy’s case.”

  “Really? How come?”

  “You have to be careful with some people. In my case you have to be careful with everyone. Gordon never understood that. He thought that the things people did to end up at Croton couldn’t touch him. He never took it seriously; he should have … and you should too.”

  Barrett startled as the secretary made fleeting eye contact; Marla was her mystery caller. “But why Jimmy? Did you warn him about other cases?”

  “You ask so many questions … Jimmy had people looking out for him; the others didn’t.”

  “Who?”

  “His sister for a start. She made it clear to Gordon that he wasn’t to publish Jimmy’s story.”

  “How did she even know?”

  “I’m not sure, probably Jimmy told her. Although, the way Gordon interviewed people wasn’t like the rest of them. I think most of them didn’t even remember what they’d told him.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “He’d give you a shot first, and then you’d still be awake, but not all the way. Almost like you were dreaming.”

  “He interviewed you that way?”

  “Yes, but it wasn’t a bad thing. I sometimes thought that’s why he worked so hard to get me released.”

  “Because of the injection?”

  “No, because of the truth. I could hear the words leaving my mouth; it was so easy to tell him everything. I wasn’t ashamed; I didn’t even cry. That used to be my problem; I had too many tears. They’d get so I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t stop myself. I got diagnosed as having a psychotic depression. I took a lot of pills for that but nothing stopped the tears. That is until Gordon came along.”

  “What was different with him?”

  “I’m trying to tell you. I wasn’t even his patient. He was writing an article about women who kill. Isn’t it funny? That’s how we met. I sometimes wondered what would happen if we did get married. What would we tell people, or our children, about how we first met? Isn’t that something married couples do? ‘Well,’ I’d say, ‘I was in the nut house after lighting my first husband on fire and Daddy wanted to interview me, because I’d killed the bastard.’ Not exactly something you put on a greeting card.”