Death Trance

by R. D. Zimmerman

  “Great. Let me just drive you around. I won't be in the way—I can wait for you if need be and I can help you here at the apartment, too.”

  “I don't know…”

  “Toni, it's been a long time. Much too long.” I wanted to reach out and touch her leg or arm, but I sensed I should hold back, not cross the boundary between the present and the past. “Besides, I know it's awful, having to deal with all this,” I said, trying hard not to sound too much like a used-car salesman making his last-ditch effort. “So wouldn't you like some old, friendly company?

  Besides, I think I'm going to be hurting too much tomorrow to go to work.”

  She dove into her thoughts, bowing her head forward so that her long, thick hair tumbled over her face. She was gone, underwater, lost, and I could not guess her response. But when she came up for breath, pulling and pinning her hair behind her head with one hand, I saw her smile and that chipped tooth.

  She said, “Yeah, that'd be nice.”

  So we drove back to my place in silence, where she reclaimed her rental car and then headed off to her hotel, a Holiday Inn, of course, at Seven Corners. As she drove away in the small, spotless white car, as the red taillights faded down my tree-lined street, I wished I'd had the guts to offer her a room in my place. Her own room, of course. But I don't think I could have handled that, probably would have tossed and turned all night, thinking of her so close yet so far away and how it had taken me years to get over her rejection of me. Or had I gotten over it? Hadn't time just dulled it? On the other hand, had I asked she would have refused my housing invitation. Of that I was sure. In a certain way Toni had always been stronger than I.

  As it was, I languished in the memories and tossed and turned all night as if I had in fact spent the evening with a ghost.

  The next morning the only thing that really ached were my ribs. My head was fine, my arm just bruised and a little sensitive, but the ribs, they hurt, particularly when I first tried to get out of bed. I took my first cup of coffee into the shower and just stood there, sipping the steaming beverage while the hot water beat on my side.

  First on the agenda was calling into work—I told them I'd had a bike accident and wouldn't be in today, perhaps not for a couple of days. I hit a patch of wet leaves, I lied, and took a good spill, so I wouldn't be up for any technical writing. That, of course, cheered me a great deal, which was why I was pretty smiley when I picked Toni up at eight. She, the doctor, inquired about my injuries, but I assured her that I was more than fine, delighted to be off from work.

  We ate at Al's Breakfast, a tiny bowling alley of a diner with one narrow row of counter stools, a famous joint in Dinkytown, the university village. I wanted to charm Toni and I did. The Wallys—walnut waffles—were great.

  Toni had been on the phone first thing that morning, and so a little before eleven we were downtown, parking in a garage, walking down Nicollet Mall, soaking up the first of what promised to be a brilliant spring day. We didn't linger, though, as we headed for an appointment with Liz's therapist. Dr. Edward Dawson had an office in the Medical Arts Building—the same building as my wonderful dentist with the tiny hands that didn't rip wide my mouth—and I wondered if he was a psychiatrist and not a psychologist, and if he'd had Liz on any kind of medication.

  “How much do you know about this guy?” I ventured as we rode up to the sixth floor in an incredibly slow elevator.

  Toni shrugged, brushed back her long hair, exposing a silver loop earring, and said, “He's got an incredible reputation, plus he's on the executive council of the American Psychiatrists Organization, so he's well known nationally. Liz started seeing him a couple of years ago, and I know she was crazy about him. She talked about him a lot—Dr. Dawson said this or Dr. Dawson did that—and she really seemed to get better. You know, more even, not so up and down. That's why I don't get this suicide stuff. She seemed so good the last six months, like she was out of the woods.”

  It turned out Dawson's practice was quite small—he had no partner and there was no receptionist. But he was obviously successful—the furniture in the waiting room was quite plush, a black leather couch and side chair, and a walnut coffee table that was littered with copies of Architectural Digest, Harper's, Atlantic Monthly, and the like. Nice soft light, too, from an expensive-looking lamp that stood in one corner. And it wasn't a handwritten note taped to the wall but a printed sign that told us to please take a seat, the doctor would be right with us, he was in session. We sat down in the small room, and I studied a couple of the framed nature prints—no, they were signed lithographs—on the yellow walls. Not my taste but good taste. Expensive, too. Squinting, I saw a framed book jacket on the wall, an anthology of essays edited by Dawson. A busy guy.

  He was prompt. A little before eleven we heard a door open, some low voices—one of which muttered, “Thank you, Doctor”—and then another door opened and glided shut. So, I thought, the good doctor has another means of escape, a back way for his patients to sneak out of. An exit where the perhaps tearful, perhaps joyful client could leave in utter privacy. How tasteful.

  As he came out, Dawson cleared his throat. I did a quick judgmental scan and in an instant I could understand why Toni's sister had felt comfortable here. He wasn't very tall. Maybe five eight. Mid- or perhaps late forties. He had a narrow face, a narrow head, and he was bald, a rim of graying brown hair circling the back of his head. It was the face, though, that seemed particularly soft. Easy. Rich blue eyes that were deeply set, and a mouth that looked as if it could as easily spout wisdom as humor. He wore baggy, soft-looking khakis and a white broadcloth shirt with a blue tie that went with the eyes, and he carried a manila folder that went with the profession.

  “You must be Toni Domingo,” he said, entering the serene waiting room that seemed a reflection of all that he wanted. “Hi, I'm Ed Dawson. I'm so glad to meet you. Fortunately I had a client who canceled this morning.”

  Toni held out her hand, started to rise.

  “No, no, please sit down,” said Dawson.

  He took Toni's hand in his, shaking it gently, then sat in the armchair at a right angle to the leather sofa. My eyes followed the folder that remained guarded in his lap. A patient's chart. A big thick one. Was it Liz's or did it belong to the unseen client who'd just parted?

  Dawson started, stopped, then said, “I don't know quite where to begin. Liz was a wonderful person, and… and…”

  This time it was my turn to clear my throat. Me, the third wheel. I'd thought Toni and Dawson would disappear into his office, that I would be left here with the strewn magazines. But obviously not. This wasn't a session but a conversation, so it was taking place out here in the waiting room instead of in Dawson's office.

  I said, “Toni, do you want me to wait outside?”

  As if she'd forgotten my presence, she turned to me with a small start. “Oh, Alex, I… I…” Then she looked back at Dawson. “This is Alex Phillips, an old friend of mine. He lives up here and—”

  Cut her off, I thought. She doesn't know how to introduce me, so save her the awkward words. I rose slightly, pushing myself up, but not sure if I should stand—an old formality?—then reached out and shook the doctor's hand.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said. Then to Toni again, “There's a coffee shop downstairs. Why don't I wait down there?”

  “No, it's all right.”

  “You and I,” Dawson suggested to Toni, “could step into my office. Would you prefer that?”

  “No, really, it's all right.”

  Toni was pressing down on my arm, lightly pushing it against the leather sofa. I saw the tinge of anxiety in her eyes. She wanted me to stay. Needed me to. This was going to be heavy duty, of course, and the therapist's words intense. Dawson certainly held some keen insights into Liz, perhaps some big truths, and this was clearly of some concern to Toni. Obviously she didn't want to hear them on her own. It was going to be like looking into a casket, seeing the body of a loved one. And Toni wanted someone's, any
one's, hand to hold as Dawson opened the lid of Liz's mental coffin.

  Dawson looked down, clasped his hands, looked up. “First of all, I have to say that Liz's death shocked me terribly. I thought she was doing just fine, that she was right on schedule. Things were coming along so well and she seemed to be making so much progress. She'd had some bad days lately, but I really didn't sense any suicidal inclinations.”

  Toni tensed. I felt her tighten up, then squirm slightly.

  “As you might have known,” he continued, “I'd been seeing Liz twice a week for the last two years. When she came she'd been having trouble with depression and anxiety, so I started her on medication.”

  “Really? I didn't know that—that she was taking any.”

  “Yes, and she responded very favorably. With her moods in control, her therapy was intense and, I have every reason to believe, rewarding. We concentrated on a number of family-of-origin issues, her self-esteem, and her relationship with her boyfriend.”

  “You mean Rob Tyler?”

  “Right, the fellow from the College of Art and Design.”

  “But I thought they'd broken up?”

  “Well, they had, but relationships are often hard to end. You can't just flick a switch.”

  Amen, I thought.

  “She wasn't seeing him anymore,” Dawson went on. “At least not as far as I knew. He was calling her, though, maybe once a week. Liz didn't know how to handle it, she was a little afraid of him, which was the subject of one of our last sessions.”

  Toni lowered her head, shook it. “That guy's such a jerk. I met him once. Liz took me to some bar, and I couldn't believe it. He's just a skinhead. What in the hell did she see in him?”

  “Honesty, at least that's how she put it.”

  “What? I mean, when I saw him his head was all shaved and he was wearing all this black leather and everything. He sure as hell didn't look like any Boy Scout to me.”

  “Well, that may be, but Liz felt he was being honest about how he saw the world. To him it was a dark, ugly place with many problems, and he was reflecting that. She liked that he didn't pretend the world was great and wonderful.”

  I glanced over. Toni was shaking her head. Unfortunately, it all fit, it all made sense, even to me. I'd never known Liz very well and hadn't seen her for years, but hadn't she been trapped, angrily so, between the perceived and real truths of the world? Absolutely. That was what her first suicide attempt was all about, an act of frustration, of rebellion, against an alcohol-ridden family that had pretended to be the Cleavers.

  “I might also add,” continued Dawson, “that that same thirst for honesty was why she broke up with Rob.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He became involved with some sort of gang. She tried to keep Rob out of it, but when she couldn't she finally broke things between them.”

  Toni shook her head. “Poor Liz.”

  Firmly, fatherly, Dawson strode into his role, clearly relishing it, and said, “Liz loved you a great deal. Rather, I should say she adored you. You must know that. In everything that she told me, it was always clear that Liz felt extremely close to you—she always, always spoke highly of you.”

  Her voice faint, weak, even shattered, Toni zeroed in on her main point of interest, “So you think it was suicide, too?”

  “I'm afraid so.”

  He drew a deep breath, opened the file that sat on his lap. So all that, I thought, looking at the sheaf of papers, was info on Liz. What she'd said. What she'd feared. Insurance papers, too, and all those data of the official world. And from the stack, Dawson pulled something I recognized. Stationery, small and squarish, a tasteful off-white. Sure. Liz had written her letter to Toni on the same stuff.

  “I received this the day after Liz took her life,” began Dawson. “This arrived, and I tried contacting her immediately. She'd threatened suicide before, but always in person, never in a letter. So when I read this, I was quite concerned. In fact, I was the one who first contacted the police. Of course, they didn't find her body for another four days.”

  Fingers trembling, Toni took the letter, held it, read it in disbelief. I read it, too. Peered over Toni's shoulder. Saw three handwritten lines, short ones. Brief and to the point.

  Dear Dr. Dawson,

  It's just too much, all of it. I can't go on, can't continue like this. So this is good-bye. You see, in the end I am master of my own destiny.

  Love,

  Liz

  Quickly, I read it, reread it, even as Toni fell apart. Even as Toni bent forward, hands to her eyes. I slipped the letter from Toni's fingers, read Liz's letter once again, because there was something about it that bothered me.

  “What is it? What are you noticing?”

  I raised my head, looked at Dawson with the question wrinkling my face. “There's no date on this.”

  “What?” said Toni faintly, looking up with red eyes.

  “This letter's not dated.”

  Dawson took the note, scanned it, and his face flushed. “No, it's not, is it? Funny, I'd never noticed that before. I have the envelope it was mailed in—it's somewhere in here.”

  His fingers like ten worms in a stack of papers, he carefully and thoroughly went through the folder on his lap. Obviously this was a guy who was used to order; that he couldn't find the envelope straight off was clearly disturbing to him.

  “The coroner,” he said as he searched, “figured that she'd died on the Tuesday of that week, and I received this on Wednesday. I'm positive of that.”

  Toni was in her purse, rummaging around. Then she found what she was after. Her Liz letter. Same stationery. Same handwriting.

  “I got this from Liz on that Wednesday, too,” said Toni, holding out what she hoped would prove her sister's redemption.

  All our eyes went right to the top of Liz's letter to Toni, and there, boldly scrawled, was “Monday.” That made sense. Written and mailed on Monday, in Toni's Chicago mailbox on Wednesday. That would be mail service from the Twin Cities to Illinois in great but not impossible time. Mind whirling, I leaped to Dawson's letter. Written and mailed on Tuesday, delivered to Dawson the next day, Wednesday. Sure. Next-day delivery in the same city. That was typical.

  “So what happened?” I asked. “She was fine, even great, on Monday when she wrote this letter to Toni. But then she took a nosedive, wrote to you, and then committed suicide. Is that possible?”

  “Damn,” said Dawson, almost a little panicky as he searched the file, “the envelope must be in my office.” He scratched the tip of his nose. “Possible? Yes, I'm afraid so. What exactly happened? I don't think we'll ever know. Perhaps she stopped taking her medication. Or perhaps it was something else altogether—an argument with a friend, a fight with her ex-boyfriend.”

  Toni said, “I'll be frank, I'm not a fan of psychotropic drugs. Liz knew that, which I suppose is why she never mentioned she was taking anything. You're a psychiatrist, right? What did you have her on?”

  Unable to hide his distress, he closed the file, said, “I beg your pardon?”

  “What did you prescribe for my sister?”

  “Cazorp.” Dawson glanced at me, then back at Toni, and said rather defensively, “It's a fine drug. I have a number of patients taking it.”

  “Believe me—I'm a physician—I know there are a lot of people out there on Cazorp. But I don't think it's the wonder drug some say it is. I see a lot of patients for side effects from it—diarrhea, jitters, dry mouth. I'm sure you saw the recent report claiming that prolonged use of Cazorp might cause sudden and severe depression.”

  “The test results on that were totally inconclusive.”

  Letting the issue slide, Toni moved on, saying, “My sister was never good about following directions. Do you know if she was taking the medication regularly?”

  “She said she was and I have every reason to believe so. Unless a patient's in a hospital, however, you can't be absolutely positive. I can get you the dates of the prescriptions and
the dosages if you want, but I think you'll see that everything was in order. I always monitor prescriptions—I don't just write them out left and right.”

  “No, of course not,” replied Toni. “I didn't mean to imply that.”

  I didn't like it, either, this drug stuff. Liz could have overdosed, underdosed, or the prescription could have been wrong in some other way. On the other hand, maybe Liz needed to be straightened out with a drug like Cazorp before she could deal with certain things. Maybe she would have been dead years ago if she hadn't been on meds. However, Toni and her family were going to have to ponder the possibility of something chemical pushing Liz over the edge. And if it was something of that sort, then there'd be some vindication, some relief, that no, the family hadn't caused Liz death, but some concoction of the drug industry had.

  Dawson pushed past the issue of medication, and spoke of Liz, praising her desire to get healthy, her sense of humor, her writing, which she'd been working at so hard. She'd told him about some big article she wanted to write. Something that would be startling. An expose of sorts. She was doing the research and she was sure she was going to be able to sell it to The Reader, an alternative weekly.

  At this, Toni nodded, said, “Right, that must have been the article she wanted me to do the photos for.”

  There was more, but not much. Dawson recounted several anecdotes that were purely for Toni's pleasure, but even after death, it was clear he wasn't going to breach Liz's confidence and get into the nitty-gritty of her life. The ugly stuff. There really was no need for that, either. No need to get into the crud that would hurt those Liz had already wounded by her quick departure.

  We were there for almost an hour until it was clear that Toni was overwhelmed, and Dawson low on what more to say. So we left. Toni thanked him, he reiterated his admiration of Liz and what a tragedy this was, and I played the good friend, there at Toni's side for her support.

  “Call if you have any other questions,” said Dr. Dawson as we all stood, the audience over.