Mind Games

by William Deverell

  An unhappy consequence is that he lost his zeal for the Okanagan bicycle rally, and he has been off his training. This has been such a healthy interest, one that has kept him focused and driving, that I spoke sternly to him about his excessive use of antidepressants. He assured me he has now stopped these experiments.

  Somehow, in this state, he managed to drift through the week, seeing few patients and suffering through another session with the discipline committee.

  Frustrated at being “out of the loop” of the murder investigations, he went on a tangent, visiting The Tides on a whim. There, while dealing with Bob Grundison and Lyall DeWitt, he felt a “jolt” that came to him, “like a missile disappearing into the ocean of the unconscious.” He became aware only the next day of the catalyst for this profound inner event, and it has launched the police investigation in an unexpected direction.

  Meanwhile, he hasn’t seen or spoken to Sally Pascoe, who in any event has been unavailable, instructing at a weeklong artists’ retreat on Cortes Island.2 He has been immersing himself in studies of the creative impulse, seeking answers to “her mystery.” I’m tempted to the view that envy of her gift is an unrecognized element of his feelings for her.

  Another unwelcome side effect of his drug misusage was an inability to remember dreams. Though this is in one sense benign, he would rather be aware of disturbing dreams than have them caged within, “gnawing away like rats at my unconscious.” I agreed: there were important messages in these dreams.

  However, he erected few of his usual defences when I broached his unresolved feelings about his origins. I was able to tell him that Victoria and I had finally met and she’s now ready to be forthcoming: she is very concerned about his emotional state and feels her reticence has created an unnecessary barrier between them.

  One hopes he’ll hear Victoria openly. She’s been such a dynamic figure in his life that he feels his vision of her is impaired “by an emotional force field.” I’ve noted that his percipience in picking up various cues often fails him when he contends with significant others such as Victoria and Sally; in other words, his ability to read the signals of those for whom he deeply cares may be distorted by his deep responses to them.

  Are you hearing me?

  I’ll be okay, I’m getting back to normal, whatever that is. How can I discuss mood-altering substances with my patients if I don’t try them? I can appreciate how people get hooked, though. Nice buzz from fluoxetine, it was like the gentle fog that comes off the ocean in the morning. When I was lying on the grass doing a Rorschach with the cloud formations, I saw God’s profile, if that’s of therapeutic significance. How are things working out for you, Allis?

  It hasn’t been great. Richard phoned – he wants to patch it up.

  And?

  And I don’t think so.

  I wish I could … never mind. You saw Victoria.

  This morning.

  And what came of it?

  You need to hear it from her.

  What’s her concern – that I’d love her the less because she was raped on the shore of Kootenay Lake?

  Tim, please return to the couch.

  Sorry, I’m restless. I had a revelation, Allis, as I was seeing God in the clouds. A confirmation of the terrible truth of my conception. Victoria has never explained why she wrote a horror book, and suddenly the answer came – it’s because she was raped that her novel features a sadist, a guy who’s sexually perverse. We both missed it, Allis, the signal from my dreams – the satyr, for God’s sake, Pan, god of forests and fertility. He gave us the word panic – did you know that? From the ancients’ fear of the lustful, lurking goat-man …

  Tim, that’s very interesting, but aren’t you making quite a jump … ?

  She couldn’t bring herself to say my father raped and abandoned her, but the information kept seeping through her psychic pores and I caught it like a contagion, a disease. It’s why so many of my hinges are loose. It’s the whole answer.

  I think Victoria would like you to visit. Why don’t phone her and say you’ll make dinner for her this weekend?

  I remember little of what passed between us after that because my mind was on a recipe for bouillabaisse I wanted to try. It calls for a dollop of Pernod and an array of shellfish, herbs, and vegetables, and I was trying to recall the ingredients, planning my trip to the market tomorrow.

  You must have asked about my week, for I remember taking you on a wandering path through it. Another ordeal with Vivian, Schulter, and his two lickspittles. The Tides, Grundy and his ménage à trois, his protective staff. A psychic jolt that caused a brief power outage and disabled me, followed later by another jolt, of remembrance.

  I am steadily losing patients. They’re fleeing like rats from my sinking ship, and poor James has been making alarming noises about my bank balance. I’m on the whole unconcerned about such trivia, they are a mouse squeak as against the roar of wifely betrayal and violent conception and murderers prowling the night.

  I’m sure my garbled accounts have only added to your diagnosis of sedative withdrawal, but I’ve stopped being my own lab rat – my experiments validated my addictive tendencies. Now at this late-night hour there’s a barbed edge around my shrinking comfort zone, an inner scratching that announces worse is yet to come.

  I know I’ve disappointed you, Allis. You’ve invested a hundred dollars in le prix de Okanagan. I swear now, by all that is sacred, that I will return to harness, that I’ll sweep past that finish line, arms raised in triumph whether I be first or last.

  The meds, however, did help me get through another session of the Schulter hearing. Despite the theatrics of Vivian Lalonde, I felt detached, more a bemused spectator than a participant, at least until my rambunctious lawyer pulled a boner.

  I’d forgot that the hearing was to resume on Wednesday (chalk it up to extreme avoidance). When the summons came I was in my dressing gown, absorbed in treatises on the artistic impulse. I’m no artist; diddling on the clarinet doesn’t make me one. I have no instinctive sense of the creative itch that Sally feels. (It’s like a living thing, says Jung, implanted in the human psyche. The nature of artistic achievement is inaccessible to us, says Freud.)

  At about half past ten, John Brovak interrupted with a gruff telephone inquiry as to whether I might want to show up for my character assassination, already in progress. He’d asked Ivan Kolosky only a few questions, Vivian Lalonde was waiting to testify, and Schulter’s patience was wearing thin at my casual attitude. I told Brovak I had confidence in him to carry on without me; I would call a cab after I showered and shaved.

  The Prozac was making me feel almost relaxed about the affair, though I was curious to know what fanciful version Vivian had finally settled on. Her blunt “Go fuck yourself” on my answering machine hinted she might not be a friendly witness.

  When I walked into the hearing room, she was still testifying. These were the chilling words that greeted me: “Afterwards, he seemed a little embarrassed – we both were, it happened so suddenly.”

  My three judges were in rapt attention, Schulter hiding his glee, Mundt leering, Rawlings craning to hear. Vivian was sitting cross-legged on an armchair, dressed for a show of cleavage and thigh. She cast me a look that I had no trouble reading: I gave you a chance, you turned me down.

  Schulter held back from commenting on my lateness and allowed me a moment to confer with Brovak. He was uncharacteristically subdued. “She’s good.” My faith in my counsel began to slip – had he, too, been gulled by this dissembler? “She either believes this shit or she should be on the professional stage, they’re drooling all over her.”

  “I warned you. She’s a skilled liar. Who allegedly made the first move?”

  “You did. There was a moment of silence, you were staring intently at each other, then you seized her and kissed her passionately. She couldn’t resist. You seemed lonely and in pain, you had just broken up with your wife.”

  I muttered an oath. How credible that might soun
d, with its clever mix of truth and lie. Anxiety began to work like a worm through the protective armour of my Prozac. Could I actually be found guilty?

  On resuming, Schulter asked, “Just to clarify, Ms. Lalonde, you say this was the second time Dr. Dare made physical advances?”

  “Yes, some weeks earlier he drew me into his arms, and … it was quite silly, actually, we fell over a footstool and I ended up on top of him. You should ask his secretary about that, he saw us embracing on the floor.”

  “Yeah,” said Brovak, “that was the first time she took a run at him.”

  Mundt eagerly picked up on that. “And that incident didn’t prompt him to end your relationship? He didn’t cancel further appointments?”

  “Oh, no, he wanted to see me again.”

  Mundt carried on in eager pursuit: “On the latter occasion, when you say, ‘We made love,’ you’re referring to what act?”

  “Sexual intercourse.”

  “There was full penetration?”

  “Yes.” She didn’t blush at this rude inquiry, or drop her eyes.

  “And was there a discharge of semen?”

  “There was.”

  Mundt wasn’t satisfied with that. “Can you be sure?”

  “A woman is always sure, Doctor.” She smiled at him. He reddened. The sex expert.

  “And for how long did intercourse take place?”

  “Not long enough.” She sighed. “I don’t deny being caught up in the passion of the moment, but …”

  Mundt urged her along. “But what, Ms. Lalonde?”

  “But the moment was very short. He had an orgasm very quickly. I wasn’t ready. And … and he withdrew abruptly. As I say, he seemed surprised at himself, embarrassed that he had succumbed to his desires. He became brusque, and I … I felt he’d simply dismissed me after satisfying his sexual appetite, and I’m afraid I became quite angry.”

  “That’s when Mr. Kolosky came in,” Schulter said.

  “Can we just let her tell her own story? “Brovak was piqued. I think he’d expected Vivian to be more zany and scattered, less credible.

  “He walked in just as we were dressing. I’m afraid he heard some rude words from me.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, I told Dr. Dare I felt used, I called him an utter bastard.”

  “Thank you.” Schulter looked woeful, as if he found the fall from grace of his lustful colleague too much to bear. “I’m afraid I must ask you to stay put, Ms. Lalonde, because counsel may have some questions.”

  Brovak eyed her for several seconds before commencing. “Let’s get some background here. When you came to see Dr. Dare you were suffering a deep depression, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You were having marital problems. You left your husband only after half a year of marriage.”

  “Our relationship didn’t work out.”

  “And basically what happened is you became infatuated with my client.”

  “There was an attraction. It was hardly one-sided. He told me he loved me.”

  “That’s pure crap.” Brovak ignored Schulter’s reproachful look. “You were living in a dream world, you were having fantasies about making love to him.”

  “I’m sure everyone in this room has had sexual fantasies.”

  Mundt nodded wisely.

  “Ms. Lalonde, let’s not play games here. You were the aggressor, he was the victim of an unprovoked attack. You jumped him, got your lipstick all over his face, tried to pull his clothes off.”

  She shouted. “I am telling the truth!” She levelled an accusatory finger at me. “Just as you told me to, Timothy Dare!”

  Schulter called for order. “Just a minute. Ms. Lalonde, do I understand you met with Dr. Dare?

  Vivian took a while to recover, a tissue at the corner of her eye. “Occasionally, yes, in different restaurants.”

  Brovak barked: “Because you were chasing him all over the goddamn town.” He turned to the committee: “She burglarized his damn office, left a bunch of naked pictures. My client almost got himself run over trying to escape from her. We have witnesses up the yin-yang. They’ll say this woman announced she was going to perjure herself at this hearing, and that’s what she’s damn well done.”

  Schulter looked at him unblinkingly. “Do you have any further questions?”

  “Yeah, why don’t we just shut this whole thing down?” Brovak had finally got his lather up.

  Schulter looked at Mundt, then Rawlings. They looked at Vivian, doubt showing on their faces.

  “I’m in total agreement,” Vivian said. “He’s in enough pain. I’ve forgiven him.”

  Their heads came together. Was this the end of my ordeal?

  The huddle broke up. “Under the circumstances,” said Schulter, “there remains a possible element of undue influence. We will continue.”

  Brovak sighed with exasperation and returned to Vivian. “Okay, let’s put this to a test. You’re damn sure you’re telling the truth?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “So I guess you’re willing to take a lie detector?”

  “Absolutely.”

  My throat went dry.

  “You’re positive that’s what you want her to do, Mr. Brovak?” Schulter asked.

  “Yeah. I think it’s time we brought this to a head.”

  “Let’s look at our calendars and see when we can reconvene.”

  I sat in a state of dulled helplessness as they debated dates, and a few moments later found myself with Brovak in a nearby bar, gulping from a tankard of beer.

  “For Christ’s sake, John – a polygraph! They’re totally unreliable.”

  “Maybe you got me confused. You said she’d definitely flunk a lie detector.”

  “I was being rhetorical.” I felt hollow. It was well within possibility that Vivian’s responses would show little electrodermal activity. She’d been so self-assured in testifying.

  Brovak was unconcerned. “It’s a cakewalk.” He was more interested in Victoria’s trial. “Huff is nuttier than a granola bar, and you can prove it.”

  “He’s eccentric. He’s not certifiable.”

  “Yeah, and you don’t think he’s dangerous? You’re working on these serial murders, right? Speaking of loopiness, don’t you find it coincidental that two of the victims got choked that way?”

  I wasn’t following. Brovak explained he’d heard scuttlebutt in the courts that Wilmott and Morgan had been looped by a wire. I still wasn’t following.

  “Same pattern as the book we’re hassling over, except the victims were women.”

  I nearly dropped my pint, but managed to set it down with a shaking hand. I remembered the opening day of the libel trial, the mayor of Jackson Cove reciting that appalling passage, a rape victim, looped by a wire …

  Yes, the fictional Huff, jolly, suspender-slapping Clint, had killed his first hostage that way, maybe also his second. I admitted to Brovak I’d never read beyond the first few chapters, then went silent, tried to work through the implications, my mind sluggish.

  Brovak drew a copy of When Comes the Darkness from his briefcase, handed to me. “You ought to read it, pal.”

  “How were the others murdered?”

  “We got a couple of loopings, we got an axe, we got a hanging, and a drawing and quartering. Not counting Clint, who gets his head chewed off by a grizzly.”

  I stared at the cover: a moonlit town hall, a skulking Rigoletto with a sack on his back. Was this the key to understanding? But little was making sense right now. I pushed my pint away.

  “Maybe I’d better switch to coffee.”

  I spent the rest of the day struggling through When Comes the Darkness with a jumpy, queasy stomach. Imprisoned female hostages, orgasms begot by violent acts of homicide. I got through the axe murder and the hanging but didn’t make it past the drawing and quartering.

  And you don’t think he’s dangerous? The antipathy Huff holds for me caused me to wonder again: Had he been following me? Had
he been writing the anonymous letters? I know where you live – that note had been mailed from Vancouver just after his stressful experience in court.

  I indulged in fanciful leaps, assembling the case against Clinton Huff, three counts of murder one. Had he been in Vancouver when Chauncey Wilmott breathed his last? Yes, his application for a change of venue was around that time. And on September 17, another grisly visit? He couldn’t find an axe in Pierrera’s suite, used scissors instead …

  No, there were two men. Huff with an accomplice? Doubtful.

  The voice of sanity intruded. Come back to earth. There’s another answer. I heard my psychiatrist telling me to look deeper …

  I took a double dose of Xanax the next morning for a headache – a punishment for my addled speculations of the day before – and moments later Bob Grundison called. As far as I was capable, I went on alert. He wanted to know if we could “do a rain check on our get-together today.” He was struggling with an essay due Friday: theories of unconscious human motivation.

  I asked where he was calling from. He was at home. I told him I was sorry, but I’d set the time aside. He pleaded, he needed to finish this project for his passing grade. I told him I’d think about it, call him back.

  Jack Churko and a technician were supposed to come by at noon to set up monitoring devices for this interview. Thanks to the soothsayer and her preposterously lucky guesses, Churko was no longer so dismissive of my theories. But I wasn’t much in his plans. The Attorney General had beefed up his crew, now a task force of twenty, but it was mired in futility.

  Meanwhile, Vancouver was almost in a state of siege, demonstrations were continuing. Gay rights activists were camped on the doorstep of the Attorney General’s office in Victoria.

  According to the best estimate of the city pathologist, José Pierrera had died Wednesday, September 17, four nights before his body was discovered. It seemed beyond coincidence that the vagrant in New Brighton Park was murdered earlier that evening by the same men.

  As with dogs gone wild, one slaughter only excited the killers’ thirst for blood – I believed the murder of Pierrera reflected a growing appetite for death, a need that might be building anew: thrill killing offers the sufficiently depraved a gratification more addictive than heroin.