Amnesia

by G. H. Ephron

  I took the elevator to the seventh floor. The preservationists would have been delighted at how little had changed here in two years. As I walked the familiar walk to the end of the hall, I felt anxiety tighten my stomach. Breathe, I told myself, and counted steps.

  The door to the law office was open and I could hear phones ringing. I looked through the doorway. The central room was crowded with a squadron of steel desks with an assortment of very young men and women at work there or close by. Around the edges were small offices, separated from the center area by glass partitions. I stepped inside. I spotted Chip through one of the partitions. He was on the phone but he saw me. He waved and held up one finger.

  I found a chair and perched on the edge of it, shifting my bulging leather briefcase onto my lap. The office teemed with activity. Voices were raised, phones rang. I felt apart, awkwardly suspended, as if I weren’t even in the room but looking at it from the wrong end of a telescope. I opened my briefcase and rummaged through the papers.

  The smell of fresh-cut watermelon made me look up. Annie was an alien among the well-dressed young legal types. In her jeans and plaid flannel shirt, her long brown hair curling wildly around her face, Annie felt like a breeze blowing in from an open window.

  In spite of myself, I grinned.

  “Been awhile since you were here,” she said.

  I nodded and went back to rummaging.

  “Heard about your car,” she said. “And after losing the boat …” Her voice trailed off. I knew she was watching me but I couldn’t meet that look. I could handle loss. It was sympathy that made me want to throw up.

  “I talked to Mac.” Now her voice was brisk, all business. “Swears he didn’t know Sylvia Jackson until after the murder. Admits he knew of her.”

  Now I looked up. “Meaning?”

  “Some of his buddies knew her — well. And you were right. They’re not on the official list of early suspects. They were questioned. Discreetly.”

  “You don’t think he’s hiding something, do you?” I asked.

  “I told you before, I’m not entirely unbiased. If he helped an old lady across the street, I’d suspect ulterior motives.”

  “He does seem so” — I searched for the word, rejecting “rabid” and “insane” — “overreactive. It’s more than bad chemistry between him and me. Maybe he’s protecting his buddies. Or maybe he’s protecting himself.”

  “Or maybe he’s just an asshole,” Annie said.

  “Right,” I said. “Except that he’s put himself in a good position to shape what she remembers. How do we know her memories didn’t develop courtesy of his suggestions?”

  “We don’t,” Annie said.

  “I found something out, too,” I said. “You know the pleated paper cup that held the meds Syl OD’ed on? They don’t use that kind of cup for medication. They use white plastic ones.”

  “So, the pills Sylvia Jackson found in her bathroom weren’t left there by a nurse.”

  “Or doctor. Or any of the hospital staff. At least not in an official capacity. Speaking of which, would you expect a nurse to carry a handgun around in her purse?”

  “Well, it’s certainly not your typical nurse gear. But you’d be surprised how many .people — women — have guns these days. And nurses aren’t so good at doing what you’d expect them to do, either. Ever notice how many of them smoke?” Annie stopped. “Who are we talking about, anyway?”

  “The nurse I have to get past every time I go to see Sylvia Jackson. Carolyn Lovely. She was with Syl in the parking garage. A gun fell out of her purse when she jumped to get out of the way. Can you check on something? Find out if she’s got a restraining order against an ex-husband.”

  “That would explain the gun.”

  “It would. And another thing. Angelo Ruggiero, the nephew Syl refers to as her guardian angel —”

  “I think the police interviewed a nephew early on. But the name doesn’t sound right. Not Ruggiero. Angelo something-else-Italian. I’ve got it in my notes somewhere.”

  “I’d like to know more about him and his name’s a good place to start. I wonder if he was involved in any business with his uncle. Stuart mentioned that Tony was waiting for some deal to happen before he’d marry Sylvia Jackson.”

  “Typical male excuse.”

  “Yeah. But what if there was some big deal that he was about to close? And what if Angelo and he were doing business together? And what if — ?”

  Annie held up her hand to ward off my onslaught of whatifs. “I know he had an alibi. I’ll see what I can find out.”

  Just then, Chip appeared and led me back to his office. Annie disappeared into a similar office along the opposite wall.

  I unloaded documents onto a round table, alongside the files Chip already had stacked there. The phone rang and I waited while Chip disposed of the caller. The windows of the corner office were filmed with dirt and the furniture was gunmetal gray — a desk, file cabinets, and chairs. Only the chair behind the desk — a swivel chair with a dark leather seat cushion and padded armrests — looked like it had been picked out by an actual person.

  One wall was floor-to-ceiling law books. Hanging on the wall behind the desk was a series of portraits of a girl, starting with a crude crayon drawing and evolving into an accomplished pencil and watercolor sketch. In a series of photographs, a girl’s face matured from infant to prom princess.

  “Your daughter’s growing up,” I commented.

  “She got rid of her braces and now, look out,” Chip said.

  A Grateful Dead poster hung on the back of the door — a red, white, and blue skeleton. Fillmore East, 1976. I should have known. That wry sense of humor, the intensity, a social conscience long after it had gone out of fashion. Chip had the soul of a Dead Head.

  “New poster?” I asked.

  “Got it in on e-Bay. I couldn’t resist.”

  “Were you there?”

  “I was,” he said wistfully.

  “That’s amazing. I was there, too.”

  “If you’d told me then that this is where I’d end up.” Chip laughed and shook his head.

  I glanced through the glass, into the busy office. “This place hasn’t changed. Not a single one of your colleagues has gotten a day older. How do you do that?”

  “We send out for replacements every six months.”

  “But you’re still here.”

  He looked around, as if surprised to find that he was. “It’s definitely not inertia that keeps me here. I still buy into the notion that people who can’t afford a private attorney need me. And this place is addictive.”

  I noticed a framed photograph on Chip’s desk: Chip and four men, all wearing three-piece suits topped off incongruously with baseball caps, grinned back at me. I could make out the inscription on one of the caps: MURDER SQUAD. As if defending killers were part of some perverse game. “When they come to certify you insane, I’ll offer this photograph as evidence,” I told him.

  “Not a great way to hang on to your family, though. My wife left me last year. I guess she couldn’t take the roller-coaster ride and the all-nighters. Never mind the threats in the mail, the nasty phone calls. Can’t say that I blame her.” He swallowed. “I think Kate’s death was a piece of it. It showed how vulnerable this work makes us all.”

  I stared at the patriotic skeleton. None of us at the Grateful Dead concert had any inkling of the evil in the world. Or of how oblivious we’d be if the devil himself were sitting beside us, sharing a toke.

  Annie pushed the door open and slid inside carrying another dozen file folders and some small spiral notebooks.

  I spent a few minutes explaining Syl’s personality tests. I summed up the results: “Naturally, this thing that’s happened to her is a very significant event in her life and it’s left her feeling incomplete, broken, small and powerless. The tests tell us that she uses denial and distortion to deal with all of these negatives. She sees something frightening or disturbing and she runs the other way
— coming up with happily-ever-after flowers and paper butterflies.”

  “Paper butterflies?” Annie asked.

  I nodded. “For instance, she’ll turn an inkblot one way and see severed limbs and hatchets. Then she flips it around, and lo and behold, a paper butterfly. It’s called reaction formation. She’s using it to deal with the unpleasant images that are originating both inside and outside of her.”

  “She gave Stuart Jackson paper butterflies the day before the murder. It was his birthday,” Annie said.

  “One thing’s for sure. They represent safety for her now.”

  “By the way, I checked around,” Annie said as she flipped open a small notebook. “Turns out Sylvia Jackson told a friend at work that story about how Tony walked in on her when she and Stuart were in bed together.”

  “Did Syl mention what Tony was wearing?” I asked.

  Annie laughed. “She did. This woman remembered because she thought Syl said Tony was dressed in a gorilla suit — like a monkey. Then when Syl described it, she realized she’d meant the other kind of guerrilla.”

  Chip said, “I want to bring that earlier incident out at trial without calling Stuart to testify.”

  “It’s just the kind of thing Sylvia Jackson does — mix old memories up with her more recent past,” I said.

  “So we’ve got that,” Chip said. “We’ve got the test results. Seems as if they couldn’t be more clear. But how to show that to the jury,” Chip slowed down, thinking as he spoke, “without turning them off? They’re going to want to believe her. She’s appealing, sincere, and very vulnerable. And I have to undermine every single word she says without appearing to be an ogre — not an easy line to walk.” He continued, eyes narrowing as strategies formed in his head. “If I’m solicitous and gain her trust, then we should find that she’s just as suggestible on the witness stand as the police who questioned her found her to be in the hospital.”

  I shifted in my seat, feeling acutely uncomfortable. I pushed aside a vision of Syl dressed in a hooded red cape and Chip in a sheepskin. I wasn’t her protector. I wasn’t even her physician. None of the normal doctor-patient responsibilities and restrictions applied. Still, the vision of Red Riding Hood returned, only this time I was the wolf in sheep’s clothing.

  Chip went on, “And then, after she tells the court what happened, we hit her with the discrepancies between what she’s just said and her earlier statements. She’s going to get confused and flustered.”

  “Poor thing,” Annie commented, “she’s contradicted herself a million times.”

  “On the other hand,” I argued, “don’t you think everyone’s had that experience? You know, you tell a story and then, over time, the details drift. Ever reminisce with a friend about something you did together and find out that your memories are totally at odds with one another? It doesn’t mean the event didn’t happen.”

  “Sure. It happens to everyone,” Chip answered. “It’s a question of degree. We need to poke so many holes in the foundation of her story that it’s clear to the jury that it’s built on sand.”

  Annie offered, “But you’ll need to be careful. Badgering can backfire.”

  Chip agreed. “Right. I don’t want to make her seem more of a victim than she already is.”

  “Sylvia Jackson’s not on trial for murder,” I said coldly, echoing the words of her ex-husband. Annie and Chip stared at me. I got up and tried to pace, but the office was too small. “It would be a whole lot more satisfying if murder trials were about figuring out who’s guilty. About getting at the truth. Instead, they’re all about appearance, about manipulating the jurors’ perceptions. I know. Let’s design a board game. Call it Murder Squad. The goal is to collect as much money as you can and never go to jail.”

  “Peter,” Annie said gently, “we’re the good guys. The trial starts next Monday and Stuart Jackson is depending on us.”

  23

  THE TRIAL was into its second week and I was more and more anxious as the day I’d have to testify approached. I was getting up early to work on my car, putting in a full day at the Pearce, rowing at dusk, relying on routine to pull me through.

  Chip called me every other night with an update. They’d selected a jury and forensic evidence was being presented. The DA. was using that evidence to meticulously build a case that pointed to Stuart Jackson as the murderer. But there were holes. No one had seen him in Cambridge on the night of the murder, a night when he claimed to be home with the flu. The gun still hadn’t been found. The prosecution speculated that it was the .22-caliber handgun now missing from Syl’s bedside table. No one had been able to explain how Tony’s hair wound up in Stuart Jackson’s camouflage cap. The single thumbprint on the steering wheel of Syl’s car, a steering wheel otherwise wiped clean of prints, remained unexplained. It didn’t belong to Syl. It wasn’t Stuart’s or Tony’s, either. Find the owner of that thumbprint, Chip had suggested to the jury, and you’ll find the real killer. Find the owner of that thumbprint, the D.A. told them, and you’ll find the mechanic who last serviced the car.

  At the hospital, we had our hands full. Miracle cures are always suspect, and Maria Whitson was having one.

  Gloria spotted it first. “Have you noticed the change? She’s too bright and it’s too all of a sudden. It feels as if she’s on something.”

  “You’re worried?”

  “Concerned. No question about it, she’s made progress. But there’s something about her that doesn’t add up.”

  When I found Maria Whitson, she looked nothing like the puffy, doped-up person we’d admitted more than four weeks earlier. Once lifeless little indentations, her eyes were now bright and enormous, with less face around them. Her skin was clear and her hair was clean and artfully arranged to frame her face. If you disregarded the baggy sweats that needed a good washing, she looked like a woman you’d see on Newbury Street having wine at a tapas bar.

  “I’m feeling so much better,” she told me. The words came out in a rush and seemed a little too loud. “And I’ve decided to see my parents. I know I’ll be ready to leave soon.”

  As she waited for me to respond, she shifted back and forth from one foot to the other. Though her arms were still, I could sense the effort it took on her part to keep them from flying about.

  I hedged. “I’m glad you’re feeling better. You’re certainly looking brighter. Let’s discuss it this afternoon when we meet.”

  I walked away with a strong sense of unease. When I saw Gloria again, I told her I agreed — something didn’t feel right. “I’d be less concerned if this were less sudden and if we had a better idea of what kicked off this most recent suicide attempt.”

  Gloria pulled out Maria’s chart. We went through it, not sure what we were looking for.

  “Her weight’s down,” I commented. “She came in at one-sixty. She’s down to one fifty. Not extraordinary since she’s stopped bingeing.”

  “She look like one fifty to you?” Gloria asked. “I’d have guessed one thirty-five.” Gloria pursed her lips and stared off in the direction of Maria’s room.

  I checked the weekly lab reports. “Her fluid balance is off. The lytes are skewed. Not a lot. But some.”

  “Shit.”

  “Gloria, I’ve got a session scheduled with Maria in an hour. Can you check her weight before then? And while you’re doing that, get someone to search the room for drugs — just to be on the safe side.”

  When Gloria found me later, she was grim-faced. She handed me four blue plastic pouches. They were weights with Velcro fasteners, the kind joggers wrap around their arms or legs to give them an added challenge. “She was wearing these under her sweats when she got on the scale. Something else, too. I checked with housekeeping. Someone’s been dropping food under the table at mealtimes. It’s either Maria or someone sitting near her.”

  “Any drugs in her room?”

  “Nothing. But in the process, we did find something. A cell phone. Hidden inside an empty pitcher.”
/>   “If that isn’t the most bizarre. For a woman who keeps insisting that she has no friends, no relatives, nobody in the world who cares about her, who’s she so concerned about staying in touch with?”

  In my office, I set the weights on my desk and waited for Maria to arrive. The pouches together weighed easily ten pounds. That meant Maria was losing weight faster than was healthy. She couldn’t be eating much. And the skew of her fluid balance suggested that she was making herself throw up the rest.

  She arrived sullen. She flopped into a chair, slid down on her spine, and hugged her knees to her chest. “I want to go home,” she said, addressing the space between her knees, her jaw stiff and set.

  “And we want you to go home. Just as soon as you’re well enough.”

  She looked at me through tears. “I am well,” she insisted.

  When I didn’t answer, she screamed it. “I am well!”

  “Ms. Whitson,” I started.

  “What good are you, anyway?” she shouted. “You don’t understand anything. This place is a snake pitl And you’re no Dr. Baldridge! He explained what was going on. You … you don’t explain anything. Rules for this, rules for that, rules for everything. But you never tell me what the rules are!”

  How quickly I’d gone from being the good Dr. Zak to the nasty Dr. Snake Pit. “Ms. Whitson, everyone here is trying to help you. But you have to help yourself, too. And right now, you’re not.”

  Maria stood up and walked over to the window. She ducked her head into the dormer and leaned her head against the glass.

  “You’re not eating. You’re making yourself throw up.”

  She scowled. “It’s Gloria, isn’t it? That wasn’t my food she found under the table. Someone else threw it there. It’s all crap anyway. You make us eat crap!”

  “And,” I held up the plastic weights, “you’re pretending that everything is fine.”

  She started out gently tapping her head on the window, but it quickly escalated to banging as Maria sobbed, “Everything is fine. Everything is fine.”