Book of the Dead

  “It’s important you don’t hear what she says until you’re in the scanner.”

  “I’d like to talk about my father. He died when I was very young.”

  “All right,” says Benton, who sits as far away from her as he possibly can, his back to the desk and the laptop computer on top of it. On a table between them, the recorder runs. “Let’s talk about your father.”

  “I was two when he died. Not quite two.”

  “And you remember him well enough to feel rejected by him?”

  “As you know from studies I presume you’ve read, infants who aren’t breast-fed are more likely to have increased stress and distress in life. Women in prison who can’t breast-feed suffer significant compromises in their capacity to nurture and protect.”

  “I don’t understand the connection. Are you implying your mother was in prison at some point?”

  “She never held me to her breast, never suckled me, never soothed me with her heartbeat, never had eye contact with me when she fed me with a bottle, with a spoon, a shovel, a backhoe. Did she admit all this when you taped her? Did you ask her about our history?”

  “When we tape a subject’s mother, we don’t need to know the history of their relationship.”

  “Her refusal to bond with me compounded my feelings of rejection, my resentment, made me more prone to blame her for my father’s leaving me.”

  “You mean his dying.”

  “Interesting, don’t you think? Kay and I both lost our fathers at an early age, and both of us became doctors. But I heal the minds of the living while she cuts up the bodies of the dead. I’ve always wondered what she’s like in bed. Considering her occupation.”

  “You blame your mother for your father’s death.”

  “I was jealous. Several times I walked in on them while they were having sex. I saw it. From the doorway. My mother giving her body to him. Why him and not me? Why her and not me? I wanted what they gave to each other, not realizing what that meant, because certainly I didn’t want oral or genital sex with my parents and didn’t understand that part of it, what they did as things progressed. I probably thought they were in pain.”

  “At not quite two, you walked in on them more than once and remember it?” He has placed the diagnostic manual under his chair, is taking notes now.

  She readjusts her position on the bed, makes herself more comfortable and provocative, making sure Benton is aware of her body’s every contour. “I saw my parents alive, so vital, and then in the blink of an eye he was gone. Kay, on the other hand, witnessed her father’s long, lingering death from cancer. I lived with loss and she lived with dying and there’s a difference. So you see, Benton, as a psychiatrist, my purpose is to understand my patient’s life, while Kay’s is to understand her patient’s death. That must have some effect on you.”

  “We’re not here to talk about me.”

  “Isn’t it wonderful that the Pavilion doesn’t adhere to rigid institutional rules? Here we are. Despite what happened when I was admitted. Has Dr. Maroni told you about coming into my room, not this one, the first one? Shutting the door, loosening my gown? Touching me? Was he a gynecologist in a former career? You seem uncomfortable, Benton.”

  “Are you feeling hypersexual?”

  “So now I’m having a manic episode.” She smiles. “Let’s see how many diagnoses we can conjure up this afternoon. That’s not why I’m here. We know why I’m here.”

  “You said it was because of the e-mail you discovered while you were taking a break at the studio. Friday before last.”

  “I told Dr. Maroni about the e-mail.”

  “From what I understand, all you told him is you’d gotten one,” Benton says.

  “If it were possible, I might suspect all of you hypnotically lured me here because of that e-mail. But that would be something out of a movie or a psychosis, wouldn’t it?”

  “You told Dr. Maroni you were terribly upset and feared for your life.”

  “And then I was given drugs against my will. Then he fled to Italy.”

  “He has a practice there. Is always in and out, especially this time of year.”

  “The Dipartimento di Scienze Psichiatriche at the University of Rome. He has a villa in Rome. He has an apartment in Venice. He’s from a very wealthy Italian family. He’s also the clinical director of the Pavilion, and everyone does as he says, including you. Before he left the country, we should have sorted through what happened after I checked in.”

  “‘Checked in’? You seem to refer to McLean as if it’s a hotel.”

  “Now it’s too late.”

  “Do you really believe that Dr. Maroni touched you inappropriately?”

  “I believe I’ve made that patently clear.”

  “So you do believe it.”

  “Everybody here would deny it.”

  “We absolutely wouldn’t. If it were true.”

  “Everybody would deny it.”

  “When the limousine brought you to admissions, you were quite lucid but agitated. Do you remember that? Do you remember talking to Dr. Maroni in the admissions building and telling him you needed a safe refuge because of an e-mail and would explain later?” Benton asks. “Do you remember becoming provocative with him both verbally and physically?”

  “You have quite the bedside manner. Perhaps you should go back to the FBI and use rubber hoses and whatnot. Perhaps break into my e-mail and my homes and my bank accounts.”

  “It’s important you remember what you were like when you first got here. I’m trying to help you do that,” he says.

  “I remember him coming into my room here at the Pavilion.”

  “That was later on—in the evening—when you suddenly became hysterical and incoherent.”

  “Brought on by drugs. I’m very sensitive to drugs of any sort. I never take them or believe in them.”

  “When Dr. Maroni came into your room, a female neuropsychologist and a female nurse were already there with you. You continued to say that something wasn’t your fault.”

  “Were you there?”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “I see. Because you act as if you were.”

  “I’ve read your chart.”

  “My chart. I suppose you fantasize about selling it to the highest bidder.”

  “Dr. Maroni asked you questions while the nurse checked your vitals, and it became necessary to sedate you by intramuscular injection.”

  “Five milligrams Haldol, two milligrams Ativan, one milligram Cogentin. The infamous five-two-one chemical restraint used on violent inmates in forensic units. Imagine. My being treated like a violent prisoner. I remember nothing after that.”

  “Can you tell me what wasn’t your fault, Dr. Self? Did it have to do with the e-mail?”

  “What Dr. Maroni did wasn’t my fault.”

  “So your distress had nothing to do with the e-mail that you said was your reason for coming to McLean?”

  “This is a conspiracy. All of you are in on it. That’s why your comrade Pete Marino contacted me, isn’t it? Or maybe he wants out. He wants me to rescue him. Just like I did in Florida. What are you people doing to him?”

  “There’s no conspiracy.”

  “Do I see the investigator peeking out?”

  “You’ve been here for ten days. And told no one the nature of this e-mail.”

  “Because it’s really about the person who has sent me a number of e-mails. To say ‘an e-mail’ is misleading. It’s about a person.”

  “Who?”

  “A person Dr. Maroni could have helped. A very disturbed individual. No matter what he’s done or hasn’t done, he needs help. And if something happens to me, or to someone else, it’s Dr. Maroni’s fault. Not mine.”

  “What might be your fault?”

  “I just said nothing would be.”

  “And there’s no e-mail you can show me that might help us understand who this person is and perhaps protect you from him?” he says.

  “It’s in
teresting, but I’d forgotten you work here. I was reminded when I saw the ad for your research study posted in admissions. Then, of course, Marino said something when he e-mailed me. And that’s not the e-mail. So don’t get excited. He’s so bored and sexually frustrated working for Kay.”

  “I’d like to talk to you about any e-mails you’ve received. Or sent.”

  “Envy. That’s how it starts.” She looks at him. “Kay envies me because her own existence is so small. So desperately envious she had to lie about me in court.”

  “And you’re referring to…?”

  “Mainly her.” Hatred coils. “I’m perfectly objective about what happened in that gross example of litigious exploitation and never took it personally that you and Kay—mainly Kay—were witnesses, making the two of you—mainly her—champions of that gross example of litigious exploitation.” Hatred coils coldly. “I wonder how she’d feel if she knew you’re in my room with the door shut.”

  “When you said you needed to talk to me alone in the privacy of your room, we made an agreement. I would record our sessions in addition to taking notes.”

  “Record me. Take your notes. You’ll find them useful someday. There’s much you can learn from me. Let’s discuss your experiment.”

  “Research study. The one you volunteered for, got special permission for, and I advise against. We don’t use the word experiment.”

  “I’m curious why would you wish to exclude me from your experiment unless you have something to hide.”

  “Frankly, Dr. Self, I’m not convinced you meet the criteria.”

  “Frankly, Benton, it’s the last thing you want, now, isn’t it? But you have no choice because your hospital is far too shrewd to discriminate against me.”

  “Have you ever been diagnosed as bipolar?”

  “I’ve never been diagnosed as anything but gifted.”

  “Has anybody in your family ever been diagnosed as bipolar?”

  “What all this will prove in the end, well, that’s your business. That during various mood states the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of the brain is going to light up, given appropriate external stimuli. So what. PET and fMRI have clearly demonstrated there is an abnormal blood flow in the prefrontal regions and decreased activity in the DLPFC in people who are depressed. So now you throw violence into the mix, and what will you prove, and why does it matter? I know your little experiment wasn’t approved by the Harvard University Committee on Use of Human Subjects.”

  “We don’t conduct studies that aren’t approved.”

  “These healthy control subjects. Are they still healthy when you’re done? What happens to the not-so-healthy subject? The poor wretch with a history of depression, schizophrenia, bipolar or other disorder, who also has a history of hurting themselves or others or trying to, or obsessively fantasizing about it.”

  “I take it Jackie briefed you,” he says.

  “Not quite. She wouldn’t know the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex from a small cod. Studies of how the brain responds to maternal criticism and praise have been done before. So now you throw violence into the mix, and what will you prove, and why does it matter? You show what’s different about the brains of violent versus nonviolent individuals and what does it prove, and what does it matter? Would it have stopped the Sandman?”

  “The Sandman?”

  “If you looked at his brain, you’d see Iraq. And then what? Would you magically extract Iraq and he’d be fine?”

  “Is the e-mail from him?”

  “I don’t know who he is.”

  “Might he be the disturbed person you referred to Dr. Maroni?”

  “I don’t understand what you see in Kay,” she says. “Does she smell like the morgue when she comes home? But then, you’re not there when she comes home.”

  “Based on what you’ve said, you got the e-mail several days after Drew’s body was found. A coincidence? If you have information about her murder, you need to tell me,” Benton says. “I’m asking you to tell me. This is very serious.”

  She stretches her legs and with her bare foot touches the table between them. “If I kicked this recorder off the table and it broke, what then?”

  “Whoever killed Drew will kill again,” he says.

  “If I kicked this recorder”—she touches it with her bare toe and moves it a little—“what might we say and what might we do?”

  Benton gets up from his chair. “Do you want someone else murdered, Dr. Self?” He picks up the recorder but doesn’t turn it off. “Haven’t you been through this before?”

  “And there it is,” she says from the bed. “That’s the conspiracy. Kay will lie about me again. Just like before.”

  Benton opens the door. “No,” he says. “It will be much worse this time.”

  Chapter 9

  Eight p.m. in Venice. Maroni refills his wineglass and smells the unpleasant canal smell below his open window as daylight wanes. Clouds are piled halfway up the sky in a thick, frothy layer, and along the horizon is the first touch of gold.

  “Manic as hell.” Benton Wesley’s voice is clear, as if he is here instead of in Massachusetts. “I can’t be clinical or appropriate. I can’t sit there and listen to her manipulations and lies. Get someone else. I’m done with her. I’m handling it badly, Paulo. Like a cop, not a clinician.”

  Dr. Maroni sits before his apartment window, drinking a very nice Barolo that is being spoiled by this conversation. He can’t get away from Marilyn Self. She has invaded his hospital. She has invaded Rome. Now she has followed him to Venice.

  “What I’m asking is if I can remove her from the research study. I don’t want to scan her,” Benton says.

  “Certainly I won’t tell you what to do,” Dr. Maroni replies. “It’s your study. But if you want my recommendation? Don’t piss her off. Go ahead and scan her. Make it a pleasant experience and just assume the data is no good. Then she’s gone.”

  “What do you mean ‘gone’?”

  “I see you haven’t been informed. She’s been discharged and is leaving after the scan,” Dr. Maroni says, and through his open shutters, the canal is the color of green olives and as smooth as glass. “Have you talked with Otto?”

  “Otto?” Benton says.

  “Captain Poma.”

  “I know who he is. Why would I talk to him about this?”

  “I had dinner with him last night in Rome. I’m surprised he hasn’t contacted you. He’s on his way to the U.S. In the air as we speak.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “He wants to talk to Dr. Self about Drew Martin. You see, he feels sure she has information and isn’t coming forward with it.”

  “Please tell me you didn’t.”

  “I didn’t. He knows anyway.”

  “I don’t see how that’s possible,” Benton says. “Do you realize what she’ll do if she thinks we told anybody she’s a patient here?”

  A water taxi slowly rumbles past, and water laps against Dr. Maroni’s apartment.

  “I assumed he got the information from you,” he says. “Or Kay. Since both of you are members of the IIR and are investigating Drew Martin’s murder.”

  “He certainly didn’t.”

  “What about Lucy?”

  “Neither Kay nor Lucy knows Dr. Self is here,” Benton says.

  “Lucy is good friends with Josh.”

  “Jesus Christ. She sees him when she’s scanned. They talk about computers. Why would he tell her?”

  Across the canal, a seagull on a rooftop cries like a cat, and a tourist tosses bread to it, and the bird cries more.

  “What I’m saying is hypothetical, of course,” Dr. Maroni says. “I suppose it entered my mind because he calls her often when the computer’s down or there’s some other problem he can’t fix. You see, it’s too much for Josh to be an MRI tech and the IT.”

  “What?”

  “The question is where she’ll go and what further trouble she’ll cause.”

  “New York, I assume,”
Benton says.

  “You’ll tell me when you know.” Dr. Maroni drinks. “This is all hypothetical. I mean about Lucy.”

  “Even if Josh told her, are you making the leap that she then told Captain Poma, who she doesn’t even know?”

  “We need to monitor Dr. Self when she leaves,” Dr. Maroni says. “She’s going to cause trouble.”

  “What is all this cryptic talk? I don’t understand,” Benton says.

  “I can see that. It’s a shame. Well, no great matter. She’ll be gone. You’ll tell me where she goes.”

  “No great matter? If she finds out someone told Captain Poma she’s a patient at McLean or was a patient here, it’s a HIPAA violation. She’ll cause trouble, all right, which is exactly what she wants.”

  “I have no control over what he tells her or when. The Carabinieri’s in charge of the investigation.”

  “I don’t understand what’s going on here, Paulo. When I did the SCID, she told me about the patient she referred to you,” Benton says, frustration in his voice. “I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me.”

  Along the canal, apartment facades are muted pastel shades, and brick is exposed where the plaster is worn away. A polished teak boat passes beneath an arched brick bridge, and the captain stands, and the bridge is very low, and his head almost touches it. He works the throttle with his thumb.

  “Yes, she did refer a patient to me. Otto has asked me about it,” Dr. Maroni says. “Last night I told him what I know. At least, what I’m at liberty to say.”

  “It would have been nice if you’d told me.”

  “Now I’m telling you. If you hadn’t brought it up, I still would be telling you. I saw him several times in the space of several weeks. Last November,” Dr. Maroni says.

  “He calls himself the Sandman. According to Dr. Self. Does that sound familiar?”

  “I know nothing about the name Sandman.”

  “She says that’s how he signs his e-mails,” Benton says.

  “When she called my office last October and asked me to see this man in Rome, she didn’t supply me with any e-mails. She never said anything about him calling himself the Sandman. He never mentioned the name when he saw me in my office. Twice, I believe. In Rome, as I’ve said. I have no information that would lead me to conclude he’s killed anyone, and I told Otto the same thing. So I can’t give you access to his file or my evaluation of him, and I know you understand this, Benton.”