Silent Partner

by Jonathan Kellerman

  Strange phenomenon, mirror-image monozygotes . . . given an identical genetic structure there should be no differences at all. . . .

  “Sherry always won,” she was saying. Smile. “By the age of two she'd become a real little martinet, a little stage director, telling Sharon where to stand, what to say, when to say it. If Sharon dared not to listen, Sherry lashed out, slapping and kicking and biting. I tried to separate them, forbade them to play with one another, even got them separate nannies.”

  “How'd they react to being separated?”

  “Sherry threw tantrums, broke things. Sharon just huddled in the corner, as if in a trance. Eventually, they always managed to sneak back and reconnect. Because they needed each other. Weren't complete without each other.”

  “Silent partners,” I said.

  No reaction.

  “I was always the outsider,” she said. “It wasn't a good situation, not for any of us. They drove me to distraction. Getting away with hurting her sister wasn't good for Sherry—it hurt her too. Perhaps even more than it hurt Sharon—bones may mend, but once injured, the mind never seems to set properly.”

  “Were Sharon's bones ever actually broken?”

  “Of course not!” she said, as if addressing an idiot. “I was speaking figuratively.”

  “How serious were her injuries?”

  “It wasn't child abuse, if that's what you're getting at. Nothing we had to call a doctor for—clumps of hair pulled out, bites, scratches. By the time she was two, Sherry knew how to raise a nasty bruise, but nothing serious.”

  “Until the drowning.”

  The glass in her hand began to shake. I filled it, waited until she'd drained it, kept the pitcher at hand. “How old were they when it happened?”

  “A little over three. Our first summer away together.”

  “Where?”

  “My place in Southampton.”

  “The Shoals.” Item one on a list I'd just read in a social register: Skylark in Holmby Hills. Le Dauphin in Palm Beach. An unnamed flat in Rome. Her real children.

  “Another sun-room,” I said. “A latticed pool house.”

  My knowing shook her further. She swallowed hard. “You seem to know everything. I really don't see the need—”

  “Far from everything.” Refill. I smiled. She looked at me with gratitude. Boozer's version of the Stockholm syndrome. “Bottoms up.”

  She drank, shuddered, drank some more, said, “Here's to glorious, glorious truth.”

  “The drowning,” I said. “How did it happen?”

  “It was the last day of holiday. Early autumn. I was up in my sun-room—I love sun-rooms—merging with Nature. I've had sun-rooms in all of my homes. The one at The Shoals was the finest, more of a pavilion, actually, an Old English look, comfy and warm. I was sitting there, looking out at the Atlantic—it's a more intimate ocean, the Atlantic, don't you think?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Compared to the Pacific, which is so . . . undemanding. At least that's what I've always believed.”

  She held her glass up, squinted, sloshed vodka.

  I said, “Where were the girls?”

  She tightened her grip on the glass, raised her voice: “Ah, where were the girls! Playing, what else do little girls do! Playing down on the beach! With a nanny—a slab-faced English pudding! I paid her passage from Liverpool, gave her my best old gowns, lovely quarters. She came with recommendations, the slut. Flirting with Ramey, with the hired help—with anything in pants. That day, she was batting her lashes at the groundsman and took her eyes off the girls. They snuck into the pool house—the latticed pool house—which was supposed to be locked and wasn't. Heads rolled that day. They rolled.”

  She emptied her glass, belched softly, and looked mortified.

  I pretended not to notice, said, “Then what happened?”

  “Then—finally—the pudding realized they were gone. Went looking for them, heard laughter from the pool house. When she got there, Sherry was standing by the side of the pool, slapping her knees. Laughing. The idiot asked where Sharon was. Sherry pointed to the pool. The stupid pudding looked over and saw one arm sticking out of the water. She jumped in, managed to pull Sharon out. The pool was filthy—ready to be drained until spring. Both of them got slimy—it served the slut right.”

  “And Sherry kept laughing,” I said.

  She let go of the glass. It rolled down her lap, hit the stone floor, and shattered. The shards formed a wet gemlike mosaic that transfixed her.

  “Yes, laughing,” she said. “Such merriment. Through it all.”

  “How seriously was Sharon injured?”

  “Not seriously at all. Just her pride. She'd swallowed some water, the dumb cluck fiddled with her, and she vomited all of it up. I arrived just in time to see that—all that brown water shooting out of her. Revolting.”

  “When did you realize it hadn't been an accident?”

  “Sherry marched up to us, thumping her little chest, saying ‘I push her.' Just like that: ‘I push her,' as if she was proud of it. I thought she was joking away her fear, told Ramey to take her away, give her some warm milk and soft biscuits. But she struggled, began screaming: ‘I push her! I push her!'—claiming credit! Then she broke away from him, ran over to where Sharon was lying, and tried to kick her—to roll her over, back into the pool.”

  Shake of head.

  Smile.

  “Later, when Sharon was feeling better, she confirmed it. ‘Sherry push me.' And there was a bruise on her back. Tiny little knuckle marks.”

  She stared at the liquid on the floor with longing. I dribbled some martini into another glass and handed it to her. Eyeing the miserly portion, she frowned but drank, then licked the rim with the look of a child flouting table manners.

  “She wanted to do it again, right in front of me. Wanted me to see it. That's when I knew it was . . . serious. They couldn't . . . had to be . . . separated. Couldn't be together, ever again.”

  “Enter brother Billy.”

  “Billy always took good care of me.”

  “Why the Ransoms?”

  “They worked for us—for Billy.”

  “Where?”

  “In Palm Beach. Making beds. Cleaning.”

  “Where did they come from—originally?”

  “A place. Near the Everglades. One of our acquaintances—a very fine doctor—took in the feeble-minded, taught them honest labor, how to be good citizens. Trained properly, you know, they make the best workers.”

  Everything scrubbed down with lye soap . . . all the clothes folded neatly, beds you could bounce a dime on . . . as if someone had trained them in the basics a long time ago.

  Living near the swamps. All that mud. They'd have felt right at home on their dirt patch. Green soup . . .

  “The doctor and Henry were golf chums,” she was saying. “Henry always made a point of hiring Freddy's—the doctor's—imbeciles, for grounds work, fruit-picking, repetitive things. He believed it was our civic responsibility to help.”

  “And you were helping them further when you gave them Sharon.”

  She missed the sarcasm, seized on the rationalization. “Yes! I knew they couldn't have children. Shirlee'd been . . . fixed. Freddy had all of them fixed, for their own good. Billy said we'd be giving her—them—the greatest gift anyone could give while solving our problem at the same time.”

  “Everyone comes out a winner.”

  “Yes. Exactly.”

  “Why did it have to be done?” I said. “Why not keep Sharon at home and send Sherry away for some kind of treatment?”

  Her reply sounded rehearsed. “Sherry needed me more. She was really the needy one—and time's borne me out on that.”

  Two progeny in the Blue Book, 1954 through 1957. After that, only one.

  My guesses turned to fact, the pieces finally fitting. But it sickened me, like a bad-news diagnosis. I loosened my tie, clenched my jaw.

  “What did you tell your friends?”
<
br />   No answer.

  “That she'd died?”

  “Pneumonia.”

  “Was there a funeral?”

  She shook her head. “We let it be known we wanted things private. Our wishes were respected. In lieu of flowers, donations to Planned Parenthood—thousands of dollars were donated.”

  “More winners,” I said. I felt like throttling a little insight into her. Instead, I slipped on the therapist's mask, pretended she was a patient. Told myself to be understanding, nonjudgmental . . .

  But even as I smiled, the horror stayed with me. The bottom line, just another sickening, sordid child-abuse case, psychopathology fueling cruelty: a weak, dependent woman, despising her weakness, projecting that hatred onto the child she saw as weak. Seeing another child's viciousness as strength. Envying it, feeding it:

  One way or the other, Sherry was going to triumph.

  She was tilting her head back, trying to suck nourishment from an empty glass. I was cold with rage, felt a chill in my bones.

  Even through the haze of intoxication she picked up on it. Her smile vanished. I lifted the pitcher. She held up one arm, ready to ward off a blow.

  I shook my head, apportioned more martini. “What did you hope to accomplish?”

  “Peace,” she said, barely audible. “Stability. For everyone.”

  “Did you get it?”

  No answer.

  “No surprise,” I said. “The girls loved each other, needed each other. They shared a private world they'd created. By separating them, you destroyed that world. Sherry would have had to get worse. Much worse.”

  She looked down, said, “She put it out of her mind.”

  “How did you go about doing it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The mechanics of the transfer. How exactly did you do it?”

  “Sharon knew Shirlee and Jasper—they'd played with her, been kind to her. She liked them. She was happy going off with them.”

  “Going off where?”

  “On a shopping trip.”

  “That never ended.”

  The arm rose in defense, again. “She was happy! Better off, not being pummeled!”

  “What about Sherry? What explanation did she get?”

  “I . . . I told her that Sharon had . . .” She submerged the rest of her sentence in vodka.

  I said, “You told her Sharon had died?”

  “That she'd been in an accident and wouldn't be coming back.”

  “What kind of accident?”

  “Just an accident.”

  “At Sherry's age, she would have assumed the drowning did it—that she'd killed her sister.”

  “No, impossible—ridiculous. She'd seen Sharon survive—this was days after!”

  “At that age none of that would have made a difference.”

  “Oh, no, you can't accuse me of . . . No! I didn't—wouldn't ever have done anything so cruel to Sherry!”

  “She kept asking for Sharon, didn't she?”

  “For a while. Then she stopped. Put it out of her mind.”

  “Did she stop having nightmares too?”

  Her expression told me all my years of schooling hadn't been wasted. “No, those . . . If you know everything, why are you putting me through this?”

  “Here's something else I know: After Sharon was gone, Sherry was terrified—separation anxiety's the primal fear at three. And her fear kept climbing. She started to lash out, get more violent. Began taking it out on you.”

  Another good guess. “Yes!” she said, eager to be the victim. “She threw the most horrid tantrums I'd ever seen. More than tantrums—fits, animal fits. Wouldn't let me hold her, kicked me, bit me, spit at me, destroyed things—one day she walked into my bedroom and deliberately broke my favorite Tang vase. Right in front of me. When I scolded her, she snatched up a manicure scissors and went for my arm. I needed stitches!”

  “What did you do about this new problem?”

  “I started to think more seriously about her origins, her . . . biology. I asked Billy. He told me her lineage wasn't . . . choice. But I refused to be discouraged by that, made improving her my main project. I thought a change of scenery might help. I closed up this house, took her back with me to Palm Beach. My place there is . . . tranquil. Rare palms, lovely big bay windows—one of Addison Mizner's best. I thought the ambience—the rhythm of the waves—would calm her.”

  “A couple of thousand miles between her and Willow Glen,” I said.

  “No! That had nothing to do with it. Sharon was out of her life.”

  “Was she?”

  She stared at me. Began to cry, but without tears, as if she were a dry well, had nothing to draw upon.

  “I did my best,” she finally said in a strangled voice. “Sent her to the best nursery school—the very best. I'd attended it myself. She had dance lessons, equestrian training, charm school, boat rides, junior cotillion. To no avail. She wasn't good around other children; people started to talk. I decided she needed more of my individual attention, devoted myself to her. We went to Europe.”

  A few thousand more miles. “To your place in Rome.”

  “My atelier,” she said. “Henry gave it to me when I was studying art. On the way there, we took the grand tour—London, Paris, Monte Carlo, Gstaad, Vienna. I bought her a darling set of miniature luggage to match mine, had a whole new wardrobe made up for her—even a little fur coat with matching hat. She loved dressing up. She could be so sweet and charming when she wanted. Beautiful and poised, just like royalty. I wanted her exposed to the finer things in life.”

  “To compensate for her origins.”

  “Yes! I refused to see her as incorrigible. I loved her!”

  “How did the trip go?”

  She didn't answer.

  “Throughout all of this, did you ever consider reuniting her with Sharon?”

  “It . . . came to mind. But I didn't know how. I didn't think it was best. . . . Don't look at me like that! I was doing what I thought was best!”

  “Did you ever think of Sharon—of how she was doing?”

  “Billy gave me reports. She was fine, doing just fine. They were sweet people.”

  “They are. And they did a damned good job of raising her, considering what they had to work with. But did you really expect them to make it?”

  “Yes, I did! Of course I did. What do you take me for! She was thriving! It was the best thing for her.”

  Mayonnaise from a jar. Wax-paper windows. I said, “Until last week.”

  “I . . . I don't know about that.”

  “No, I'm sure you wouldn't. Let's get back to Sherry. Given her social problems, how did she do in school?”

  “She went through ten schools in three years. After that we used tutors.”

  “When did you first take her to Kruse?”

  She looked down at her empty glass. I rationed another inch. She polished it off. I said, “How old was she when he started treating her?”

  “Ten.”

  “Why didn't you seek help before then?”

  “I thought I could work things out myself.”

  “What made you change your mind?”

  “She . . . hurt another child, at a birthday party.”

  “Hurt how?”

  “Why must you know this? Oh, all right, what's the difference? I'm already stripped raw! They were playing pin the tail on the donkey. She missed the donkey and got angry—she despised losing. Tore off her blindfold and stuck the pin into a little boy's rear—the birthday boy. The child was a brat; the parents were nouveau riche social climbers, utterly without sense. They made a mountain out of a molehill, threatened to call the police unless I took her to someone.”

  “Why'd you choose Kruse?”

  “I knew him socially. My people had known his people for generations. He had a lovely home not far from mine with a beautiful office suite on the ground floor. Complete with a private entrance. I thought he'd be discreet.”

  She laughed. A
drunken, strident laugh. “I don't seem to be much for . . . prescience, do I?”

  “Tell me about the treatment.”

  “Four sessions a week. One hundred twenty-five dollars a session. Payment for ten sessions in advance.”

  “What diagnosis did he give you?”

  “He never gave me one.”

  “What about treatment goals? Methods?”

  “No, nothing like that. All he said was that she had serious problems—character problems—and needed intensive therapy. When I tried to ask questions he made it very clear that everything that went on between them was confidential. I was forbidden to be involved at all. I didn't like that, but he was the doctor. I assumed he knew what he was doing. I stayed completely out of it, had Ramey drive her to her appointments.”

  “Did Kruse help her?”

  “In the beginning. She'd come home from seeing him and be calm—almost too calm.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sleepy. Drowsy. I know now that he was hypnotizing her. But whatever benefits that brought didn't last. Within an hour or two she was the same old Sherry.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Defiance, foul language. That terrible temper—still breaking things. Except when she wanted something—then she could be the most charming little doll in the world. Sweet as sugar, a real actress. She knew how to twist people to her needs. He taught her how to do it even better. All the time I thought he was helping her, he was teaching her how to manipulate.”

  “Did you ever tell him about Sharon?”

  “He wouldn't let me tell him anything.”

  “If he had, would you have told him?”

  “No. That was . . . in the past.”

  “But eventually you did tell him.”

  “Not until later.”

  “How much later?”

  “Years. She was a teenager—fourteen or fifteen. He called me late at night, caught me off-guard. He liked to do that. All of a sudden he'd completely changed his tune. All of a sudden it was imperative I be involved. Come in to be evaluated. Five years of going nowhere and now he wanted me on the couch! I wanted no part of such a thing—by then I'd realized that it was useless, her personality wasn't going to change. She was the prisoner of her . . . genes. But he wouldn't take no for an answer, kept calling me, badgering me. Dropping in to chat when I was entertaining guests. Pulling me aside at parties and telling me that she and I were a . . . what was the word he used? . . . a dyad. A destructive dyad. Two people on a psychological seesaw, trying to knock each other off. Her behavior affected mine; mine, hers. In order for her to stop doing all those terrible things, we needed to equalize our communications, find emotional homeostasis or some rubbish like that. I felt he simply wanted to control me, and I wasn't about to give in. But he was like a . . . a drill. Kept at it, simply wouldn't give up. Still, I was able to resist.” Prideful smile. “Then things got much worse and I caved in.”