The Syndrome

by John Case

  “And what was that?”

  “I know you don’t like to hear it, but I think your sister was the victim of systematic and long-standing sexual abuse—”

  “Ohhh—”

  “—at the hands of her foster parents.”

  “Bull!”

  “It’s not ‘bull.’ And your reaction is typical. One sibling is ready to confront the abuse, the other insists that everything’s fine. One accuses; the other defends.”

  “It didn’t happen. I mean, think about it—it’s ridiculous. People with hoods!”

  Duran shrugged. “Your sister presented a lot of detail and although it went on for years—you were a lot younger. Sometimes, the younger victims don’t understand that what happened to them was sexual abuse. Or even sexual in nature. So you could remember it, and not have the vocabulary to understand it in the same way Nico did.”

  Adrienne just shook her head. “You’re in Candyland, Doc!”

  “There was a lot of detail. You lived with Deck and Marlena in Beaumont, South Carolina,” Duran recited, “in a house called Edgemont. It was white. The paint was peeling. And there were live oaks in the front yard.” He cocked his head, and looked at her. “How am I doing?”

  She smiled. “You’re wrong about everything. Just for openers, I can tell you that we never lived in South Carolina—or in a house with a name, any name. We lived in a little brick rancher in Denton, Delaware. And there weren’t any live oaks—just a couple of Catalpa trees with flat tops from the electric company.”

  “And your sister Rosanna?”

  “There wasn’t any ‘Rosanna,’“ Adrienne insisted. “It was just the two of us. Just Nikki and me—there was never anyone else.”

  With a sigh, Duran got up and walked to the window. Looked out at the parking lot. Finally, he turned to her and said, “Well, I’m not your therapist… and maybe it doesn’t matter, anyway.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, maybe it doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not—it’s what your sister believed. And that might explain the gun.”

  Adrienne thought about it. “I suppose it might,” she said. “Except…”

  “What?” Duran asked.

  “Who were the men in your apartment, and why did they want to kill me?”

  Duran shook his head. “I don’t know. But if Nikki was telling the truth—you’d be a witness.”

  “Except it was years ago, and I don’t ‘remember’ anything—”

  “Maybe not now—”

  “Maybe not ever! Because it didn’t happen!”

  “Memories can be recovered,” Duran suggested.

  She just looked at him for a long while. Then she shook her head, a said, half to herself and half to Duran: “I can’t believe I’m arguing with you about this… “ And then, in a louder voice: “This is crazy!”

  “What is?”

  “Everything! You!”

  “Why do you say that?” Duran asked.

  “Well, this practice of yours…”

  “What about it?”

  “You said you had two clients.”

  Duran groaned.

  “And yet,” she continued, pressing the point, “you live in a big apartment in one of the nicest parts of Washington.”

  “So?”

  “So, how do you pay for it?” Adrienne asked.

  “Well, for one thing, I charge eighty-five dollars an hour.”

  “And you see—what? Two patients—how often?”

  “Twice a week—each,” Duran told her.

  “So how much is that? Fifteen hundred a month?”

  Duran frowned. He was beginning to have trouble getting his breath. After a moment, he nodded, not quite trusting his voice.

  “Well, your apartment costs more than that! How do you eat?”

  Duran rolled his eyes and got to his feet. Crossing the room, he picked up the remote, and pointed it at the television. While Adrienne watched, he flipped from one channel to another. A cop show. A movie. A talk show. Dan Rather.

  Finally, she jerked the remote from his hands, and switched off the television. “You can’t live on two clients, Doc—you just can’t!”

  “Two clients are normal,” Duran assured her. “Two clients are fine.”

  She stared at him. It was exactly what he’d said before, when they’d been riding in the cab to the police station. She leaned closer to him.

  “You can’t live on two clients!” she whispered.

  “Sure you can,” Duran replied. “Two clients are normal—they’re fine.

  But he looked troubled by her words. He frowned, as if trying to prise something out of his memory. Then he brightened, the distress easing from his features. “Besides, I have some money of my own. My parents, you know—there was insurance.”

  She sat down beside him on the bed. “Right,” she said. “Your parents.”

  After a moment, he looked at her. “What?!”

  “Even if that’s true,” she said, “two clients isn’t exactly a practice, is it? I mean—what do you do with the rest of your time?”

  With an exasperated groan, Duran got to his feet, and crossed the room to the window overlooking the parking lot. For a long while, he stood there, lost in thought, expressionless, while Adrienne stared. Finally, he closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the cool glass. He stayed there like that for ten or fifteen seconds, then turned to her, and with a regretful smile, explained, “Two clients are normal. Two clients are fine.”

  Chapter 21

  She couldn’t sleep with Duran in the room.

  Though he’d saved her life, there was obviously something very wrong with him. The panic attacks and robotic replies, the imposture and false identity… he was way off the deep end. And knowing that, it was easy to imagine this otherwise handsome and easygoing guy going throw some dark chrysalis in the middle of the night. Without wanting to, she could imagine him morphing into Anthony Hopkins, while muttering his weird little mantra about two clients being normal…

  But it wasn’t as if there was anywhere else for her to go. Her apartment wasn’t her own anymore, not after what had been done to it. Whoever had been there before could go there again, whenever he liked. The police weren’t going to stop him.

  So she sat in the chair next to the window, reading and dozing, waking with a start, then falling off again. Eventually, dawn seeped across the highway behind the hotel, turning the parking lot into a table of gloom.

  Getting to her feet, she clapped her hands, and gave a tug to the blanket that covered Duran. “Let’s go!”

  “Wha’?” Duran pushed up on an elbow, blinking in her direction. “What time is it?”

  “Six-thirty!”

  “Jesus,” He groaned, and rolled over, pulling the covers over his head.

  “C’mon,” Adrienne said. “I want to go to your apartment.”

  Drugged with sleep, Duran sat up and rubbed his eyes. “You sure that’s a good idea?” he asked.

  Adrienne shrugged. “The police were just there. I thought we should look at your computer.”

  Duran nodded, still half-asleep. Finally, he swung his feet from the bed. Patted down his hair, and said, “Lemme get dressed.”

  “I was thinking about what happened,” Adrienne explained. “About how they knew Bonilla and I were there.”

  Duran grunted, and began pulling on his socks. “Yeah… and what did you decide?”

  “That your phone’s tapped. Either that, or… you told them we were coming.”

  Duran frowned. “I didn’t tell anybody anything.” He yawned, and shook his head, and blinked away the sleep.

  “You said one of the men looked familiar,” Adrienne reminded him.

  “Yeah, but—that was just in passing. Like I’d seen him on the street, or something.”

  “But—”

  “Why would anyone tap my telephone?” Duran asked.

  Adrienne looked him in the eye. “You want an honest answer?”

>   Duran nodded, surprised by her question. “Yeah.”

  “Because there’s something going on with you.”

  His brow plunged. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know,” Adrienne replied.

  He thought about that for a moment. Finally, he said, “Maybe you’re right.” He paused. “Then again, maybe you’re wrong.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I mean: you’re the one they tried to kill. You’re the one whose apartment was torn apart. Maybe it’s your phone they bugged.”

  She thought about it for a moment. What he said made sense. (Then again: Two clients are normal, two clients are—) “Trust me,” she said. “It’s you.”

  They took the Metro from Springfield to the Cleveland Park station, emerging a few steps from Whatsa Bagel and Starbucks. From there to the Towers was only a five minute walk.

  Duran used his Medeco key to enter the lobby. This was a large an marbled space beneath a huge chandelier, whose lights shone down on an array of tasteful couches and framed black-and-white photographs of old Washington. There were no doormen, as such, just a security desk that, at the moment, was unmanned.

  Neither Adrienne nor Duran said a word as the elevator took them to the sixth floor, shaking a little from side to side. Finally, it shuddered to a halt with a loud dinggg, and the doors rattled open on the hallway.

  “‘Jack be nimble,’“ Adrienne whispered. Duran nodded his understanding.

  Inserting the key, he turned the lock and pushed the door open, half expecting the Bear to fill the space with the fury of a sudden storm. But there was nothing—no movement, and no sound but the distant hum of a refrigerator. Stepping inside, Duran was surprised to feel the tension within him dissolve. He remembered thinking, when he’d arrived back after the polygraph, how anonymous and generic the place was. But now he felt different. There’s something about this place, he thought. I just like being here. “C’mon in,” he said, speaking almost boisterously.

  Adrienne shushed him, seeing at a single glance that someone had gone to considerable lengths to hide the violence that had taken place the day before. No bodies, no blood. Just a whiff of pine scented cleanser. Moving slowly through the room, looking for any sign of a disturbance, she’d almost given up when she found it: an indentation in the wall out side Duran’s consultation room. And a gouge in the wooden baseboard. You had to know where to look, though. “You see?” she said. “Those are from bullets.”

  Duran nodded. “I’m a believer,” he told her. “I was there.” He looked at the damage. “They took the slugs, of course.”

  She sighed. “I can see why the police didn’t buy it,” she said. “I mean if someone tells you that there’s a murder, that there are bodies, blood—and when they go to take a look, they don’t find anything… “ Her voice trailed away. “I mean, who’s going to check for gouges in the woodwork. Who’s going to look any further? I wouldn’t.”

  Going to the spot where Bonilla had fallen, Adrienne stared at the floor. Finally, she said, “I don’t get it.”

  “What?” Duran asked.

  “Any of it. I can see where they might have been able to clean things up in the time it took for the police to get here, but… what did they do with Eddie? And the other man? How did they get them out of the building?”

  Duran shook his head, as baffled as she. “Through the garage?” Then he pointed to an end table next to the couch. “Look at that,” he said.

  Adrienne frowned. “What?”

  “The lamp,” Duran said. “It’s gone. I must have broken it when I hit the guy with it.”

  Adrienne shivered. “Where’s your computer?”

  “In here.” He led her into the consultation room.

  “You drive,” Adrienne said, swiveling the desk chair in his direction.

  “What are we looking for?” he asked, sitting down in front of the computer.

  “Patient notes. Address books. Whatever we can find.”

  He pushed the Power button on the CPU, and the computer began to whir and tick, going through its incomprehensible boot up routine. It took a minute for the wallpaper to shimmer into view, then the icons, and finally they heard a fanfare of trumpets. “So—where do you want to go today?” he asked, resting his fingertips on the keyboard.

  “Patient notes. Do you have a folder for Nikki?”

  Duran nodded. Typing rapidly, he clicked successively on Start, Find (files and folders), and instructed the computer to list everything in the Sullivan folder. A moment later, the names of fifty-six files appeared in a little window. Most of them were denominated Nico, with a number after her name. Adrienne watched over his shoulder.

  “What are the numbers?” she asked.

  “First session, second session, third—like that.”

  “Go to Intake,” she suggested.

  Duran double-clicked on the file, then opened it in Word. The Microsoft splash screen appeared on the monitor and, soon afterward, later, a page consisting entirely of row upon row of numeral ones. Thousands of them. Disbelieving, Duran scrolled down the first page to the second in the file, and then to the third. They were all the same. Finally, he turned to Adrienne. “I don’t understand,” he said.

  “Let me take a look.”

  “You sure?”

  She nodded as she took his seat, and began typing. “When I was in school, I had a part-time job at Dial-a-Geek,” she told him, fingers flying over the keys. “My junior year. I only got Tier One questions, but… “ She stopped typing and looked up at him. “We’ve got a problem, Houston.”

  “I can see that, but—what is it?”

  She pointed at the screen in front of her. He saw that it was a list of the files in the Sullivan folder. Scrolling horizontally, she pointed to the last column on the right. It was headed with the word, Modified, and under it was a series of dates and times corresponding to each file. The dates were all the same, the times within a minute of one another. November 14, 3:02 AM.

  “Son of a bitch,” Adrienne muttered.

  “What?”

  She shook him off. “What’s your other patient’s name?”

  “De Groot.” He spelled it for her.

  “Is there a de Groot folder?”

  “Yeah.”

  She typed for a moment, and then sat back as the monitor flickered, and Windows listed the files in the de Groot folder. At a glance, they could see that all of the files had been modified on November 14 at about three o’clock in the morning. Hoping against hope, Adrienne called up de Groot 13—only to see that, like the intake file in the Sullivan directory, consisted entirely of the numeral 1, repeated thousands of times.

  She sighed. “Someone wiped your text files last night,” she explained. “And only your text files.”

  Duran couldn’t believe it. “How?”

  Adrienne shrugged. “It’s not complicated. I bet if you went into Programs, you’d see a little file with a cute name like… ‘Wipeout’ or ‘Textburn.’”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Someone wrote a program—”

  She shook her head. “You can download it from hackers dot com.” She pushed her chair back from the computer, as Duran swore under his breath.

  “But the information’s still there,” he insisted. “It doesn’t actually go away.”

  “No?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.

  “No,” he told her. “It’s like real memory. Even with amnesia, it’s just a question of retrieval. The data’s on ‘the disk,’ somewhere. All that’s changed is that someone’s erased the addresses.”

  Adrienne shook her head. “They didn’t erase the addresses. They changed the ‘data’ in them to a lot of ones. That’s their content. That’s what they say.” She glanced at the screen. “Unless you made backups?” She gave him a hopeful look.

  “In here,” Duran told her, pulling open the drawer on the left side of his desk. Only to find pens, pencils, scissors, and
highlighters. A staple remover and paperclips. “I mean, they were.”

  Adrienne looked around, then reached into the wastepaper basket beside the desk. “Is this it?” she asked, showing him a zip disk that someone had crumpled like an empty beer can.

  Duran looked at the label, and swore.

  “You said you made tapes,” Adrienne reminded him.

  Duran nodded.

  “So where do you keep them?”

  “I don’t,” he said. “I mail them to the—” Suddenly, he winced and groaned. “—ohhh, jeez…”

  “What?” Adrienne asked.

  Shaking his head, Duran reached into the pocket of his jacket, and produced a cassette tape labeled de Groot 34. “I was supposed to mail it, but… everything went haywire.”

  “That’s the only one you have?”

  Duran nodded.

  “What about that?” Adrienne asked, with a glance at the answering machine.

  He looked at it. “There’s only one message,” he said, tapping the Rewind button with his forefinger. Slowly, at first, and then faster, the tape began to rewind, emitting a high and empty whine that reminded Adrienne of Nikki’s robot impersonation: Rrr-rrr-rrr. Finally, it snapped to a stop with loud cli-ick.

  “Whoever it is, he’s got a lot to say,” Duran remarked, and hit the Play button.

  There was a crackling silence, followed by a man’s voice, soft and confidential. Hello, Jeff… I have a message for you—so it’s important to pay attention, okay? This is for you. Put everything down, and listen carefully… There was a second silence, and then a low, reverberating sound rose up from the machine, as if a tuning fork had been struck. The signal rose and fell, weakened and pulsed, so that it seemed to come closer and closer, only to withdraw—only to return again.

  Puzzled by the noise from the machine, Adrienne listened hard to it, trying to make sense of the sound. But it was impossible—a machine noise that made no sense and gave no hint about its origins. After while, she gave up on it and turned to Duran in irritation.

  Only to find him transfixed.

  “Jeff?” She’d never called him that before, and it seemed strange to do so now. Not that he noticed. He remained where he was, entrained by the signal that poured from the answering machine. Taking him by the sleeve, Adrienne spoke again, and again there was no reaction. “It’s a fax or something,” she explained, tugging gently at his jacket. “Let’s get out of here.”