Burn Patterns

by Ron Elliott

  ‘You’re looking at the t-shirt.’

  ‘Where do you hide your hog?’

  ‘Was a time when I rode wild and free. The kids never believed the war stories. They taunt me every chance they get. This one is nearly restful.’

  He hugged her, holding her in the hug.

  Iris suppressed a groan in spite of her sore shoulder.

  When he released her, he scanned her eyes. ‘You look well.’

  ‘You sound surprised.’

  ‘Not now I think about it.’ He took the back of one of the chairs, tipped it forward so the jacaranda blossoms cleared, offered it to Iris. ‘The bees only sting if you sit on them.’ He went to the other side of the table, performing the same operation before sitting.

  ‘I’ve tried to get through to you.’

  ‘I’m sure. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Busy.’

  Frank sighed. He projected enormous pain. ‘I was constrained, Iris.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, not meaning it. ‘Gooz.’

  ‘I need to explain. You aren’t answering your phone, by the way.’

  ‘Oh. The police have it, or ASIO.’

  ‘Ah. Okay, well … when James Jules escaped from Fieldhaven …’

  ‘Have you been talking to him?’

  ‘Yes.’ He saw her eagerness, grimaced. ‘When he escaped, questions were asked, fingers were ready to point. I’m sure I was a suspect. Why did I move him from Biara to Fieldhaven, and then why from Park to the less secure Grange Wing? And then move him again … Where is the drug cabinet? Where was I when …? They moved onto questions about you and your relationship with the patient.’

  Iris waited.

  ‘I invoked patient confidentiality, Iris. Which, as the Hollywood people found during the McCarthy trials, is tantamount to a confession. One of the consequences is the intense focus on you as a suspect.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Frank waited.

  Iris said, ‘It’s all right, Frank.’

  ‘We were both being isolated. They also needed me to give any views on where James might be and what he might do.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Then you got the church.’

  ‘Anyone could have done that. Rather obvious.’

  ‘Afterwards, yes.’ Frank grimaced again, looking down towards the harbour. Iris watched his mood lighten. ‘A team of us have been interviewing him. I’m writing up the implications now. All kinds of things are coming out of this.’

  Janine brought down two mugs of herbal tea, a battered hat for Frank. ‘Don’t tell him, but he’s going thin on top.’

  ‘Is this a calming tea or an energetic tea, Janine?’ said Iris sniffing at it.

  ‘I think it’s good for your liver and bowels.’

  ‘Which can never be a bad thing,’ said Iris to comfortable laughter.

  Janine headed straight back inside, used to the need for privacy of most of Frank’s visitors.

  Iris sipped the sweet bitterness. She detected raspberry.

  Frank looked out into the water, possibly adding notes to himself about the case.

  ‘So what did we miss, Frank? How did he fool us?’

  Frank grimaced yet again. A convocation of grimaces? A scar of regret?

  Iris said, ‘You put me in the middle, Frank. To assess. You have to let me know where I went wrong.’

  ‘What do you know about Dissociative Identity Disorder?’

  ‘Split personalities. The Three Faces of Eve. Very rare. Contested. Distinct identities. James Jules is separate and distinct from James the Martian? Is that what you’re saying?’

  Frank beamed. ‘We’ve found another.’

  ‘Another personality?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Makes sense. Is it a child?’

  ‘Good point. There’s evidence the psyche learns to defend itself during childhood trauma through this compartmentalising. It’s a learned defence and these other personalities grow, taking over in different circumstances, almost like specialists. James the Victim is not James the Martian is not James Jules. We haven’t found a child. Not yet. We’ve found an identity called Zeus.’

  ‘Zeus.’ Iris’s head was spinning. Zeus. The zed of Zorro. She said, ‘So, James does not know of Zeus’s existence?’

  ‘He does. Now.’

  ‘Why now?’

  ‘Well, we suspect the electrocution. Like an accidental ECT. He had residual drugs in his system, then the electric shock, he achieved new clarity once they revived him. There is also your … final session with him might have incited a confrontation and confusion too. Which might be why he came after you at the zoo. Not as James Jules, though. It was Zeus, seeing you as a threat to Zeus but also a threat to James Jules as the primary identity and main custodian of the shared body. The Martian might have evolved out of the infanticide trauma, but we propose the Martian identity would have established itself earlier. It took over after the child killing because James Jules couldn’t cope. Zeus, on the other hand, could regularly pop out to do his business, as he has been doing for some time. The core of both identities would have formed during middle childhood. Detective Pavlovic has a long list of potential crimes the identity who became Zeus may have perpetrated.’

  Clever Detective Pavlovic. ‘Does James know of these crimes?’

  ‘More details emerge with more questions.’

  ‘He’s available for them? His … um, physical body has no alibis?’

  ‘Being checked. It accounts for why you and I saw no signs. Our patient wasn’t privy to the information himself. He is not the person who committed those crimes. His acting out may well have been a cry for help concerning Zeus as well as his children. By the way, Zeus might have committed that crime, seeing the children as a threat to Zeus’s freedoms. James Jules wakes up in the midst of it, an innocent bystander.’

  ‘Is this another game?’

  ‘To what purpose?’

  ‘I’m mad, not bad. Put me in an institution, not prison. I’ll look for a way to escape again.’

  ‘Yes. We have many sessions ahead.’

  ‘So if you haven’t met Zeus, and if he doesn’t remember Zeus, how …?’

  ‘He knows details, even though he’s talking in the third person. Zeus did the school. The zoo. He got quite upset about the zoo. He kept asking if you were all right.’

  Iris watched the dog stand, stretch in the shade of the tree. She said, ‘James said he was allergic to dogs.’

  ‘Yes. I make him sneeze.’

  ‘The bomber, if it’s Zeus, has dogs. Lots.’

  Frank glanced at Rufus as though inviting input before he said, ‘If the allergy is psychosomatic, it is reasonable to suggest one identity might be allergic while another is not. In fact, if the identities were playing off each other, if, say, the James identity suspected the Zeus identity, he might well have a reaction as a projection, a projection of protest. Massive speculation of course.’ Frank was quite excited by it all.

  He went on, ‘I asked him if he’d known about Zeus and he said not until he woke in hospital. I asked if he remembered James the Martian. He does. He calls you Jodie Foster. You are sad but you make him happy. I asked if he remembered James Jules and he said, “Quite clearly. I know who I am.” It’s a breakthrough. It’s almost sudden. I know you gave him a nudge with your hypnosis and I know I joked about the electric shock, yet we must acknowledge we have arrived at a special climax in relation to his inner crisis. His core identity, his biographic namesake, James Jules, has possibly risen up to try to quell Zeus now James the Martian has failed, possibly died. That battle was fought under the church. A massive metaphor, possibly irresistible to both Zeus and James Jules. He’s still confused. Oh, and he said he intentionally grabbed the cord. He thought it the best way to save himself from Zeus.’ Frank stopped talking. His smile had become a little delirious.

  ‘You said Detective Pavlovic was present.’

  ‘Yes. Detectives, other psychologists who have been
on the case, military. It’s a bit of a feeding frenzy, already. People are jumping on planes all around the world to get at James. Pavlovic is still asking questions about you, if that is what you want to know. He asked James if Jodie helped him, and he said yes. Pavlovic clarified, “With the school?” and he said no. Later Pavlovic asked why he used the bomb chemical he used. James explained the chemical properties. Pavlovic asked how James knew so much about the chemical. He was a laboratory technician! You were right about his science background. It all clicks into place, afterwards. Someone asked him why Zeus wanted to blow up the school. He said it seemed sexy, ripe for the taking. Oblivious and smug. He thought it suitably challenging. James does not like Zeus at all. He scares him. He described him as vicious and callous.

  Frank regarded Iris, steepling his fingers. He entered lecture mode. ‘James swears Zeus tried to kill him. I’ve been reading up on this. Subsidiary identities can fear they will be ended when the primary identity is “cured”. Why it’s essential they are offered integration back into a whole personality with all the memories of all the identities. This raises a central ethical question. Well, it’s not really a question and it is perhaps legal rather than ethical. Should Zeus be allowed continued existence? Is Zeus sufficiently independent to be regarded as the legal entity to be charged with heinous crimes; and contingent on that, is James Jules innocent? It’s one body. One jail cell, but … the legal implications are mind-blowing. Excuse the pun.’

  ‘Can I read your report?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘When can I see him?’

  ‘I don’t think that would be wise.’

  ‘He’s tried to kill me. Zeus will come out for me, Frank.’

  ‘Detective Pavlovic still entertains the notion you might have push-pulled that combination of identities.’

  ‘Have cameras on me, your whole panel watching. You can slow motion any sleight of hand.’

  Frank considered it, assessing the leverage, the possibility of further discoveries.

  ‘You owe me, Frank. You dragged me into this. Even though I wasn’t ready. Even though it’s … been tough.’

  ‘You are massively compromised, Iris. You don’t sleep with a patient. Ever.’

  ‘I didn’t sleep with him. I stopped, remember. I need to know, Frank. I need to know how I didn’t see – the evil, the hate.’

  ‘None of us see. We don’t see until we see. Which is another reason to be objective. You’ve wanted to cure him all along, instead of studying him. You’ve been fighting not to see.’

  ‘Closure. Give me closure. Have me supervised, three guards and chains – give me the closure … the closure I never got with my mother or my father.’

  Frank watched her with mounting disappointment.

  Iris saw Janine up at the kitchen window. They’d been talking loudly, perhaps shouting.

  The dog’s ears were down.

  Iris looked back at Frank but didn’t say anything.

  Frank said, ‘Let me ask.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Using your therapy, your fractured relationship with your parents as a bargaining chip, is not healthy, Iris.’

  It was Iris’s turn to grimace. She noticed the grey in his beard, the dark circles under his eyes. She realised he would no longer be her psychiatrist as she went around the table to hug him. ‘Careful of my back.’

  Chapter twenty-three

  Chuck came through the locked door. He wore dark pants, a collared checked shirt with his official card hung around his neck. He’d shaved, had his hair cut. He swaggered in spite of his limp.

  ‘Doc!’ He waved his arm toward the door.

  Iris grabbed a visitor badge and followed him.

  ‘Back on the inside,’ she said.

  ‘Seconded still. The case goes on.’

  They got into the lift. ‘Red faces at Fire and Rescue?’

  ‘I don’t get to see those faces. They slink back into the shadows. No more jokey tags stuck on my stuff, but. Nice shit-eating email from the boss. I’m a commended person.’

  ‘You’re a goddamn warrior, Chuck.’

  ‘Are you working on me?’

  ‘Always. Once you become one of my projects, it’s for life.’

  Chuck grinned. ‘I’d like that, Doc.’ He seemed about to try to hug her. Everyone was hugging today. He got embarrassed, coughed, said, ‘We could do worse than do a few more cases together.’

  They went into the office where Pavlovic had met with them on Sunday night. The detectives were gone, their boxes of work already stacked on desks and the floor. On the wall was a streamlined case tree with new branches including the school gymnasium and the backpackers, the old people’s home, the house where the four people died and the early Springsteen case sites. There was also a map of the city and hills marked with Zeus fire sites, a cluster in the hills, otherwise an almost direct line from there to the old people’s home. The school fitted along that line. The zoo and the church were marked with different coloured pins off near the city.

  Iris said, ‘What does the line mean?’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Stuart Pavlovic entered the room.

  ‘I brought her up,’ said Chuck.

  ‘Why are you here?’ he repeated.

  ‘You’re still working the case.’

  ‘Of course we are. The case doesn’t stop, even if we caught the right crim. Evidence. Court.’

  Chuck said, ‘Just cos the circus has left …’

  ‘You haven’t answered my question, Mrs Foster. Do you have any official standing here?’

  Iris said, ‘I’m going to interview James.’

  ‘Under whose authority?’

  Iris said, ‘Yours.’

  Pavlovic blanched, scratching at an itch he’d developed on his ear. He sat on one of the desks. A lot of work had gone into his nonchalance.

  Iris said, ‘So, the line on the map?’

  Charles said, ‘We don’t know yet. It’s not random.’

  ‘Have you found any descriptions of an Indian or Anglo-Indian questioned at those first fires, Charles?’

  ‘Some Abos and a Chinese bloke. No other suntans.’

  Iris ignored Chuck’s casual racism. Now was not the time. She asked Pavlovic. ‘Was the fire safety officer at the school?’

  Pavlovic shook his head.

  Charles said, ‘We showed a photo. Nope. He is described as white, non-descript, a bit officious. They mostly remember a big bunch of keys and a red iPad he used to take notes and photos. Not Indian, not a woman.’

  Pavlovic said, ‘We’re working the case.’

  Charles said, ‘Yes. We’re not working James, we’re not working you, Doc.’ He glared at Pavlovic.

  Pavlovic said to Charles, ‘Our job is to corroborate the facts. Find any holes. Support the evidence.’

  Iris said, ‘Did you ask James about the map?’

  Pavlovic studied her. He was computing, wondering, assessing.

  Iris said, ‘I heard you were on the team to talk with him, since the church.’

  Pavlovic said, ‘Have you got any guesses about what the map might mean?’

  Iris studied it again. It traversed six or seven suburbs. ‘You clearly don’t think the zoo or the church are part of the pattern. No, no idea. It doesn’t escalate as it moves in either direction. It’s not chronological, so … he’s from the hills, grew up around there, for sure.’ She asked Pavlovic: ‘So he gave no clues about it?’

  Pavlovic shook his head.

  Iris turned to Charles. ‘Zeus. You even got the zed right! All along, Charles.’

  Charles smiled, grimly. ‘Stuart asked him about the Passiona cans. He said, maybe he gets thirsty. He’s a smart-arse, still playing with us.’

  Iris sat on a chair, rolled it back a touch so she could look into Pavlovic’s eyes. ‘When you were interviewing James, did any of you meet Zeus? Did his personality pop out and take over?’

  ‘No. It was all third-hand stuff. I couldn’t get in with many qu
estions.’

  ‘Did anyone ask James if he felt he is Zeus?’

  ‘No. If you ask me, he talked like he wasn’t, but the psychs all seemed on the same page. Really charged up and burrowing in.’

  Iris said, ‘So no one asked the question: is Zeus another person?’

  Pavlovic smiled. It was open and uncomplicated, a look Iris had not seen on his face before. ‘They did not,’ he said.

  She asked, ‘So, what do you think about all this Zeus stuff?’ Pavlovic included Charles. ‘I think he knows stuff. Stuff about the case. I think there is another person. I think James was broken out of Fieldhaven.’

  ‘Do you have evidence?’

  ‘Toxicology has come back from the two staff who were put to sleep during the escape. The drug in their bodies is not from the hospital. They are animal tranquilisers.’

  Chuck said, ‘The wheelchair at the church is from the psych hospital. Why did he take it?

  Iris said, ‘Was James sedated too?’

  Pavlovic said, ‘Awaiting the toxicology test.’

  Charles said, ‘The forensic laboratory is working the scene under the church. Things don’t add up. The cord James fried himself on had been tampered with. The piping to feed off the ether has no connectors. Not in the basement room or in the van. I can’t figure how it was actually going to be set up. I can’t see why he’d go to all that trouble if he’s going to blow the thing anyway. No one would think it was an accident. Makes no sense. He’s stark raving, of course.’

  ‘I’ll ask him,’ said Iris.

  The telephone rang. Charles picked it up. ‘Koch.’ He listened.

  Iris said to Pavlovic again, ‘I will ask him about a lot of this, if you’ll support me. Get me into the room. I want to speak with him. I don’t think he’s Zeus.’

  Koch was off the phone. He said, ‘I got to go to Child Services. They’ve pulled the files for me from two thousand. See if James pops up. For what it’s worth, I think James is Zorro. I mean Zeus. Anyway, we have lots of loose ends. There’s always loose ends, always bits no one can explain, that even a cornered, confessing, fingerprinted crim can’t answer. Why’d you smash the glass on the way out? Why’d you do a shit on the bed before you torched the house? They don’t know. They don’t even remember it happening. Anyway, if it were up to me, Doc, you’re in the room. Break the prick.’