A Mind Within

by Kerry J Charles

  “Well, it seems kinda weird to just show up. And the boss won’t like it if it seems as though we’re questioning him. Case is closed, remember?”

  “Good point. How about this.” Nick cleared his throat, “His son will participate in a museum exhibit which will contain video of him working. The museum director felt she needed to get the father’s permission even though his Aunt is now a legal guardian. However, Dr. Chambers didn’t feel comfortable coming to the prison, so she asked if we could on her behalf,” Nick concluded.

  “Dang. That’s why you got that big fancy education, right? Makes you an awesome liar!”

  “I only use it for good, not for evil,” Nick said as they went through the door.

  Soon, they were seated at a table in an otherwise empty room. An armed prison guard stood just outside the door. “What exactly are you gonna ask him?” Johnson whispered.

  “First off, I’ll say what I just told you outside, in case someone,” Nick nodded his head in the guard’s direction, “decides to chat about it. Then I want to ask him about his home life, before he came to this lovely place. I might try to push him a little, so follow my lead.”

  “So you’re the bad cop and I’m the good cop now?” Johnson quipped.

  Nick snorted. “Yeah, something like that.”

  They heard footsteps in the hallway, and the door opened.

  Both detectives looked at Lawrence Bellamy and gawked. The man was enormous. He stood over six and a half feet tall and looked like he had hands the size of a tennis racket. Strangely, he wasn’t lanky. He looked as though someone had simply taking a normal sized person and pressed the enlarge button.

  The huge man sat gently in a chair opposite them. The guard who had led him in stationed himself inside the door. He looked alert yet bored.

  “Mr. Bellamy, I’m Detective Nick Black, and this is my partner, Detective Adam Johnson. We just have some questions for you, but they don’t pertain to the, uh, the reason why you’re here.”

  Lawrence Bellamy nodded almost imperceptibly.

  “The director of the Maine Museum of Art would like to work with your son on an exhibit she’s putting together. She wanted your permission, but was,” Nick hesitated, appearing to search for the right word, “Uncomfortable coming here herself.”

  Lawrence smiled slightly. “I’m with her,” he said quietly.

  Nick explained the project as briefly as possible to Xander’s father. “So, is this something that you could approve for your son?” he concluded.

  Lawrence nodded. “My son is very talented. He is limited in some ways, but has more capacity for understanding in other ways than anyone can possibly realize.” His eyes glowed warmly as he spoke. “You have to get to know him, spend time with him, to identify with him, although some people could spend a lifetime with him and never appreciate how special he is.”

  Nick was surprised to hear this speech. He was surprised by Lawrence’s voice, too. It was soft and low. It didn’t fit with his body.

  “Did everyone at home appreciate him?” asked Nick in an offhand manner.

  Lawrence’s eyes flashed. “Not everyone,” he answered simply.

  “Is that why you’re here?” Nick coaxed.

  Lawrence sat back in his chair and folded his arms. “I’m done talking about that. I’ve said everything I need to say.”

  Johnson leaned forward. “I don’t think that’s what he was asking,” he said to Lawrence. “What Detective Black means is, did everyone in your household accept Xander for who he was? Did he have the support of everyone?”

  “These are strange questions. You came here to get my permission. You got it.”

  Nick sighed. “Okay, Lawrence, you’re right. They are strange, and I can’t, or won’t, explain why. Can you just answer anyway? Things certainly couldn’t get worse for you and who knows, maybe we can help.”

  Lawrence shook his head. “You can’t. I confessed. Besides, why would you want to help?”

  “Just work with me?” Nick tried to keep himself from showing his frustration.

  Lawrence stared at the table for a very long time. Nick held his breath. Johnson began fantasizing about a cinnamon roll. Both men were jarred when Lawrence at last broke the silence. His voice cut through the stagnant air.

  “Oscar hated everyone. He enjoyed psychological games, twisting people’s minds. He liked to make people afraid.”

  “Afraid of what?” asked Johnson.

  “Anything. Whatever their greatest fear was, he would use it against them. He liked to watch them suffer.” Lawrence’s face tightened. His body seemed to shrink as he spoke. “The only person that he couldn’t control was Xander. He couldn’t reach Xander’s mind and it made him more and more angry.” Lawrence inhaled heavily. “Or so everyone thought. You see,” he glanced at the guard who still looked bored. “I found a sketchbook,” he said quietly. “In Xander’s room. When I looked at the sketches… I can’t explain this very well… they showed fear. The faces of people around him, but looking scared. I knew then that Xander was afraid, too.”

  “And you couldn’t allow that,” Johnson broke in.

  Lawrence shook his head. “No. Oscar had already killed my wife, drove her to her death. I wouldn’t let him hurt my son.”

  “So that’s why you pushed him,” Nick said.

  “Yes,” Lawrence replied softly.

  “Lawrence, tell me. Did any discussion of this sketchbook come out in your trial? Or did you simply stick to the events that allegedly happened?” Nick was careful to use the word allegedly. He wanted to see how Lawrence would react.

  “It’s how they did happen,” Lawrence blurted. “We argued and I pushed him. That’s all. No, there was no discussion about the sketchbook. No one asked for details when I confessed.”

  Nick and Johnson exchanged glances. Nick looked back at Lawrence. “Thank you for talking with us. Thank you for your honesty.” He saw Lawrence’s eyes flutter as he heard that last word while rising from his chair. “And thanks for giving permission to the museum to work with Xander.” Nick held out his hand. Lawrence’s nearly enveloped it, but the handshake was soft. Gentle.

  What moves men of genius,

  or rather what inspires their work,

  is not new ideas,

  but their obsession with the idea

  that what has already been said

  is still not enough.

  ― Eugene Delacroix

  CHAPTER 8

  The next morning, Dulcie paced her office floor in front of Detective Nicholas Black. She stopped and whirled around to face him. “Now let me get this straight. You think Lawrence Bellamy is innocent. But you need proof. So you want me to smuggle you and Adam Johnson in as part of the film crew so that you can have access to the house to search Xander’s room, without a warrant, I might add, and find a sketchbook.”

  “That sums it up,” Nick stated.

  Dulcie leaned against her desk looking thoughtful. Her dark brown hair was pulled softly into a low chignon, and several wisps had escaped already. She reached up and attempted to slide them back in, but they simply fell forward again. Nick was glad. They made her look angelic, he thought.

  “If I didn’t agree with you about Lawrence Bellamy, I’d say absolutely not. But I do agree with you. We have one problem, though,” she explained. “Raymond Armand will be there. He knows you and Adam. He’ll wonder what you’re doing. I’ll have to tell him.”

  ‘Damn,’ thought Nick. This Dr. Armand was turning out to be trouble in more ways than one. Then he noticed that Dulcie had not used the title ‘Doctor’ before his name. Was that on purpose? Was she remembering their previous argument? Nick decided to let it go. Least said, soonest mended was the phrase he remembered hearing as a boy.

  “How do you think Armand would respond?” Nick asked. “We’ll be stealing, technically, if we take the sketchbook.”

  “Who says you’re taking it? You could simply be borrowing it, and you’ll bring it back. Besides, R
aymond doesn’t need to know about the sketchbook. We could say that you’re investigating someone else in the crew and needed to get the inside scoop.”

  “You really should have been a detective,” Nick marveled. “You know how to lie without lying.”

  “Nick! That’s terrible!” Dulcie swatted him playfully on the arm. His heart made a single, huge thump in his chest. He was sure she could have heard it. He tried to refocus. She was still speaking. “I don’t think we’ll have any trouble with him, though. He’ll be too busy trying to sound overtly intellectual. Serious ego we’re contending with there.”

  Nick felt his entire body relax. So, she really didn’t like Dr. Raymond Armand. That competition was out. Good. He brought his thoughts back to the discussion. “You’ll have the most difficult job, pretending that you don’t know us.”

  “Maybe, but I’ll be pretty busy, too. I won’t need to interact much with you. The question now is, do we tell the film crew, or just let them assume that you are two other ‘helpers’ that we brought in?”

  “See, this is what I’m talking about. You’re really good at this!” Nick grinned.

  “Fine. I now have a Plan B if this art career doesn’t work out,” she laughed. “Now be off with you! Some of us have work to do!”

  “All right. See you tomorrow afternoon at Xander’s house. One o’clock,” Nick replied.

  “Perfect,” Dulcie said, already typing on her laptop. “See you tomorrow.”

  #

  It didn’t sit well. Edith Bernstein did not like it when life was untidy. The situation with Xander’s father was definitely not tidy. She was stooped over, tying on her “walking shoes” as she called them. They were actually brown leather sneakers, “tennis shoes” according to the box, but she had always believed she would never purchase any athletic wear, so they were her walking shoes. She didn’t consider walking athletic. She considered it a necessity.

  From the house, two pathways led to the beach. One was direct, but the other twisted and turned through the pine trees and underbrush. Edith preferred that one. At a steady pace, it took a good fifteen minutes to reach the water, then another fifteen back. Half an hour was a good amount of time to think something through.

  She set off at a slowish pace, hands clasped behind her. It was her thinking gait.

  ‘So, let’s begin,’ she thought. ‘Gisa meets Lawrence Bellamy, Canadian from Quebec. They have Xander and quickly know something is wrong. Oscar takes them in. Gisa’s mother has already died. Gisa begins drinking heavily and taking sleeping pills. Giselle has been hired long before to help out.’

  Dulcie stopped. When exactly had Giselle come into the picture? What did anyone know about her? It was common knowledge that she had come in to clean their house in Quebec when Lawrence and Gisa had lived there. She had been in America with them for several years now and had practically raised Xander. Edith set these thoughts aside, to be continued later. She was very good at bookmarking her thoughts and returning to them. It was methodical.

  She started walking again. ‘Oscar pays for Xander’s therapy. He pays for everyone’s expenses while they live in the house. Xander’s condition improves, but his mother’s deteriorates. She dies of an overdose of sleeping pills mixed with alcohol. No one knows if it was intentional or not. Oscar becomes more intense with his mind games.’

  Edith could see how Lawrence would be pushed too far. She could certainly sympathize with him. He was always a quiet, good man. He had wanted to help his wife and his child. In the end, he could only help one of them. Edith could see how anyone would be driven, under those circumstances, to push someone through a window during a heated argument. She just couldn’t see Lawrence actually doing it. He had always been aware of his size. He had always been careful with everyone around him, almost to the point of being overly polite and self-conscious. Still….

  Her thoughts switched to others who had been around at that time, and rested on Raymond Armand. ‘That psychologist needs his comeuppance. He knows his stuff, but he really thinks too highly of himself.’ Edith slowed her pace. Could he have been involved? He was in the house quite often. Giselle had told her that he was angry when Oscar had discontinued his services. Evidently he wanted to make a name for himself using Xander as his research guinea pig. Everyone believed that Oscar removed Raymond Armand from the household because he didn’t want the world to know about Xander. Was that the only reason? Would that have been enough to make Raymond want to push Oscar out of a window? Was Raymond the shadow in Xander’s painting?

  Edith had reached the beach. She stopped and gazed out across the ocean. She had crossed that water so many times in her travels. It looked peaceful today, barely rippling. Tomorrow it could be different. Tomorrow huge waves could roll in from some distant storm that would never even make landfall. One large event, setting off a chain reaction that would continue rolling on for hundreds of miles and perhaps several days.

  One event. A chain reaction. Was that the key? Why had her mind thought of that? Edith did not believe in random thoughts, not in her own brain anyway. Everything that popped into her head was there for a reason. She stored away this particular thought, bookmarking it to return to later when it seemed more relevant. And it would be relevant, in some way. She was sure of it.

  #

  Giselle scurried around the house picking up various breakable items and temporarily storing them in a small back room which she intended to lock. Even though Dulcie had said that the film crew would be in Xander’s studio only, she imagined them traipsing through the entire house with big, heavy equipment, knocking over anything and everything in their path. As she made one final sweep through, she picked up a few more things that weren’t breakable, but certainly had a great deal of value: an antique wooden globe, a first edition novel…. ‘No sense in tempting fate,’ she thought.

  She continued upstairs and forced herself to go in to Oscar Bernstein’s old study. She hated that room. She had always made sure that he was nowhere in the house when the room needed cleaning. Even with him gone, she still felt uneasy every time she was in the room.

  Giselle remembered the last argument very well. She had witnessed all of it. Oscar had summoned her and Lawrence. He had told Lawrence that he would no longer be paying for Dr. Raymond Armand’s services, and that the man was no longer welcome in the house. Lawrence had been furious, in his own quiet way. The psychologist had done well with Xander; Xander had been using hand signals more. But Oscar had found a way to kill two birds with one stone. He had simultaneously squashed Dr. Armand’s intention to make his work with Xander public, and he had struck at where Lawrence was most vulnerable. Giselle remembered how Oscar had simply sneered at Lawrence, telling him to shut up or he and his “worthless spawn” would be living on the street. Then Oscar had laughed that disgusting, maniacal snicker. It had been horrifying.

  Giselle had not known why she had been summoned also. Perhaps simply as a witness to this announcement, to add to Lawrence’s distress? No, Oscar was always one step ahead of everyone. He told Giselle to stay as Lawrence stormed out. She did so, but edged toward the door.

  When Lawrence was out of earshot, Oscar had said, “My dear little Giselle. You have some secrets, don’t you.” His voice was slippery and menacing. She did have secrets. What could he know? She did not reply. “You see, I know everything. I always know everything!” He laughed again. “Let me see, one of them involves the good Dr. Armand, doesn’t it? You certainly have reason to want him to continue his work with Xander, don’t you?”

  Giselle stood as firmly as she could, willing her body not to shake. She did not reply.

  “You and the good doctor certainly got along well!” Oscar was now ogling her, his eyes scanning up and down her body. He rubbed his hands together. “Such a pity he won’t be around to see to your needs. You’ll have to find solace elsewhere!” He began to walk toward her. The next thing that she remembered was bolting down the stairs, nearly tripping on the carpet, then throw
ing herself in her room and locking the door. She could still hear his horrible laugh ringing in the hallway.

  “What else could he know?” she whispered to the empty room. Everything else was so far buried in the past, she couldn’t imagine how he could manage to dig it up. After the will reading, when she had refused the money for fear of that letter being sent to Lawrence, she had asked if she could read it. The attorneys had refused stating client confidentiality. She didn’t understand how that could apply if the client was dead. They had rambled on with something about the client now being the estate, which she still did not understand. She really didn’t care about the money. She just didn’t want certain information to surface. It might not change anything, but then again, it could bring her whole world crashing down. Giselle shook her head rapidly, trying to rid herself of unwelcome thoughts. She glanced around the room, then retreated quickly.

  She continued into Xander’s bedroom. She had seen him working in his studio, as always. She would have to take him for a walk later. He needed some fresh air. As she straightened things up, something dropped to the floor from the windowsill, behind the curtains. It was a sketchbook. Giselle picked it up and flipped it open.

  Then she recalled the conversation she had had with Lawrence. She visited him at least once each week to give him news about Xander. She worried about him in prison, away from his son. It wasn’t right. Yesterday, he had told her that two detectives had come to see him. They asked questions about Xander and Oscar. He had told them about the sketchbook. Giselle had not known about it.

  She looked at the pages filled with black and white sketches. Lawrence was right. Fear. People’s faces, even their bodies, were contorted in fear. It made her feel sick to think that Xander could have felt this fear also. To be able to capture the emotion with such raw intensity, how could he not feel it as well? Fear was one of the most basic, primal emotions, after all. Of any emotion, why wouldn’t fear be an obvious one for Xander to know?