Primal Fear

  They all looked back and forth at each other. Vail sat down behind the table, lit a cigarette and glowered into space.

  “Marty,” said the Judge, “you can’t use the altar boys tape without corroborating that the voice belongs to Rushman; you can’t use the mother’s schizophrenia as a genetic link to Aaron on the basis of a telephone diagnosis; and you can’t use the multiple personality defense without direct cross-examination of Roy or permitting the D.A. to have Molly’s tapes for study.”

  He paused for a moment, then added, “In fact, at this moment, Counselor, I’d say you’re up shit creek.”

  THIRTY

  Vail hated motels. He hated the smell of disinfectant, the soggy feeling underfoot of the napless carpeting, the twenty-dollar Degas prints on the wall, the threadbare towels, the strip of paper over the commode assuring guests that the seat has been thoroughly doused with Lysol, the knobby mattresses and foam-filled pillows. He hated motels because the ice machine would be down the hall somewhere and the switchboard would go down about ten-thirty. They were all clones. If this were an episode of “Twilight Zone,” Vail would enter the room in Daisyland and walk out the next morning in Dubuque. He took the ice bucket and wandered about until he found the machine. When he got back, he tapped on the connecting door to Molly’s room. She opened it and smiled.

  “How about a little bourbon to help you sleep?” he said.

  “What will the desk clerk think?” She followed him into the room, flopped onto her side on the bed.

  “He already said it with that look when I asked for connecting rooms.”

  “You know what they say in the old shrink business—he’s the one who’s drawing the dirty pictures.”

  He dropped two ice cubes in each of the plastic glasses and poured Jack Daniel’s over them and handed her her drink. “Motels,” he said quietly. “They’re your hell away from home.”

  They tapped glasses. “Here’s to an open-minded jury,” he added.

  “You really want this to go to trial, don’t you?” Molly said.

  “Of course,” Vail answered. “I want to know Aaron will get out—if he’s cured—and the only way I can be sure of that is with a jury. Shoat’ll fight it. The hanging judge wants to max him out as badly as Venable does. So if he can’t bum him, he’ll do the next best thing; he’ll put him away forever.”

  “Is that the only reason?”

  “Only reason for what?”

  “To go to trial. How much is personal pride involved? All the time we’ve invested in Aaron, the buildup, the strategies. You remind me of a long-distance runner. You’re trained to perfection. You want to go to trial.”

  “Molly, we’re down to the wire now. From here on it’s up to me. You have to trust me to know the best way to save Aaron’s life.”

  “I’ve always trusted you, Martin, although it isn’t easy. You’re a very armored man. You’re surrounded by shadows.”

  “What’re you gonna do, Doctor?” He laughed. “Give me a free hour on the couch?”

  She laughed. “I wouldn’t dare.”

  “I’ll make a deal with you,” Vail said. “No more talk about Aaron or the trial until tomorrow.”

  “You’re on,” she agreed. There was a momentary lapse in the conversation, an awkward silence, broken when they both laughed at how ludicrous the situation was. “The Judge says you were a lawyer in the army,” she said finally, changing the subject.

  “Yeah, judge advocate’s staff in Germany for two years. I was a defense counsel in court-martial cases. You think this is rough? Hell, it’s a picnic compared to the army’s peculiar notion of justice.”

  He sat down on a nondescript Naugahyde chair, slipped off his shoes and propped his feet up on the coffee table.

  “Was it during Vietnam?”

  He nodded. “I was lucky. I went east instead of west. It was a thankless job—but great experience. For all practical purposes, in a court-martial the defendant is guilty until proven innocent. There’ll be palm trees growing in Milwaukee the day anybody beats that system.” He stopped and sipped his drink, then added, “Not unlike the situation we’re up against.”

  “Were you an officer?”

  “I was a captain.”

  “Did you volunteer?”

  “Drafted, just after I finished law school. I was your standard long-haired protester right up until they came and dragged me away.”

  She laughed. “I can picture you as a captain a lot quicker than I can as a sixties hippie.”

  “Well, I was both. Got beat up in Chicago during the convention in ’sixty-eight. Hell, I even went to Woodstock.”

  “You were at Woodstock!” she said.

  “That surprises you?”

  “Yes, but I guess it shouldn’t.”

  “I was seventeen that summer, had a summer job in New York. There were six of us, four girls and two guys. On the spur of the moment we piled into an old Corvair and headed up the interstate. It was unbelievable. We had to walk the last six miles. All those kids, trekking to Valhalla. It was like nothing before or since.”

  “Somehow I don’t see you at Woodstock,” she said. “There’s something … I guess I don’t see you putting up with all the inconvenience.”

  “Hell, it wasn’t inconvenient, it was magical. For three days there wasn’t a single act of violence, not even a fistfight. Three hundred and fifty thousand people, dancing naked, making love in front of each other, flopping in the mud, bathing together in the pond, scrounging for food. And nobody complained.”

  “That’s because everybody was stoned out of their minds,” she said with a laugh.

  “I had a great conversation with a grasshopper. He had a deep tenor voice, almost operatic. He was sitting right here, on my sleeve, and we were discussing Richie Havens, who was at that moment singing ‘Freedom.’ I was lying in the grass and there were people everywhere. There were half a dozen people around me, caressing me, fondling me, kissing me, humming in my ear, guiding me through my trip. There was this one girl, she just kind of… hovered over me—didn’t have a stitch on. Had long red hair, it kept blowing across my face. When I came down, she drifted away. But I remember how that girl felt. How soft her skin was. That we laughed a lot when we were making love. It was … an infinite moment… that beautiful red hair … tickling my face.” He stopped for a moment, staring into his drink, then looked back at Molly. “How about you? Were you a protester?”

  “In Iowa? My God, no,” she said. “I lived in Patriot City, U.S.A. I’m sure protesting was a hanging offense. Every house had a flag in front of it, everybody was gung ho on the war. When one of the boys went away the American Legion always had a parade for him.”

  “How about when they came back?”

  She tapped an ice cube with her forefinger, watching the ice bob in the amber liquid. “My brother Bobby didn’t come back, he sneaked back. As if he was embarrassed.” She tapped the ice cube a few more times, then added, “And I guess he was, we just didn’t know how to deal with it. My dad would say, ‘Leave him alone, he’ll work it out for himself.’” She paused and then said, “And he finally did.”

  Her eyes began to mist over and Vail got up and went over to the bed. “I’m sorry,” he said, squeezing her hand. “Maybe we better talk about the trial again.”

  “No, I’ll be all right. I was just remembering the day he left. How grand he looked in his uniform, marching all by himself in front of the band, and everybody was cheering him, and when he went by he winked at me.” She stopped and after a moment said, “I lost my virginity the night before a parade just like that—when I was nineteen.”

  “Deflowered by a uniform,” Vail said with a chuckle.

  “No, deflowered by Walter Jenkins, who now has a potbelly and very little hair and owns the Ford dealership. God, I hope he’s forgotten that night.”

  “Not a chance,” Vail said. “Nobody could possibly forget you.”

  She looked up at him and he slid his hand around to the ba
ck of her neck and eased her up to him. “I think I better warn you,” she said. “I haven’t been with a man for over a year.”

  She moved a little closer.

  “Your libido must be a wreck,” Vail said, closing the gap a little more.

  “My libido is in a museum somewhere,” she whispered.

  “I’m sure it’s by choice.” They were inches apart. “You’re a beautiful, intelligent woman. I would think men would line up at your door.”

  “I haven’t seen you forming any lines,” she said, and brushed his lips with hers. Her lips were soft and wet and he drew her to him and kissed her and she fell back on the bed, pulling him down beside her.

  “How’s your libido?” she whispered.

  “Rampant.”

  He was a surprisingly considerate lover. And he was funny. He made her laugh and put her at ease. He teased her, his hands gently exploring her clothed body, then undressing her a bit at a time as his mouth continued the journey. He talked softly to her, made her laugh more. Undressed, they lay facing each other, and she could feel him hard against her. Finally she moved a leg over his leg, opening up to him, inviting him into her.

  “Be gentle,” he whispered in her ear. “This is my first time.” And she laughed out loud as she rolled over on top of him and enveloped him.

  He moved around the room very quietly, dressing in the bathroom so as not to awaken her. She was sleeping soundly when he slipped out the door at six-thirty. As he headed toward the institute he passed a small flower garden. A single purple wild-flower had pushed its way through the softening earth. Vail picked it and went back to the room. He put it in a Coke bottle and left it on the table beside the bed.

  A wet, cold early-morning fog shrouded the grounds, and the old brick buildings of the hospital looked particularly grim and ominous stretching away through the cottony mist. As he hurried toward the ultramodern max wing, he remembered something he had read by Jung. Jung had written that symbols were the primitive expressions of the unconscious, a universal language, and the unconscious could best be reached through the use of them.

  As he neared the place, he stopped for a moment and stood, shoulders hunched against the cold, thinking. Then suddenly he reached down and swept up a handful of coarse dirt from beside the concrete walk.

  A young male nurse was seated at a table beside the door to the security section when he entered the maximum wing. His name was Linc, a beefy youth in his mid-twenties with thick blond hair and a surfer’s complexion.

  “Mornin’, Mr. Vail. Little early, aren’t you?” he said pleasantly. “How about a cup of coffee? I just made it.”

  “Thanks, I can use it.”

  “Dr. Arrington gave him a shot, you know. He was nervous about the trial and all. He’s still in the therapy cell.”

  “I know. I thought it’d be nice if I was there when he comes around—to reassure him.”

  “Hey, that’s real thoughtful,” Linc said, filling a plastic cup and handing it to Vail before admitting him to the section. “Nobody really cares about them, you know, all the lost souls back there. Nobody ever visits them or thinks about them. Ain’t their fault, right? That Aaron, he’s a real nice boy. He shouldn’t even be in this place.”

  Vail entered the antiseptic therapy room and waited until the door clicked shut behind him. He stood by the door until his eyes adjusted to the fog-filtered dawn light that streaked through the high window.

  As he stood there, Vail, for the first time since the case began, felt he was in the presence of pure evil. The room was cold and almost airless and his steamy breathing became labored. Hate seemed to permeate the cubicle, like a human presence. In the deep shadows in one side of the room, he could hear Aaron breathing; a shallow, harsh sound like a large snake hissing at its foe. He shivered uncontrollably and shook it off. It was the weather outside, he assured himself. The cold, damp fog had invaded the room. Evil was not that tangible. Evil was a thing of the soul, self-contained, not pervasive.

  He did not turn on the lights. Instead he walked slowly over to the cot and stared down at the still form curled up on the makeshift bed. He sipped his coffee as he watched Aaron’s deep, steady breaming. Then the rhythm changed slightly. The breathing became more normal and Vail knew that the drug was wearing off.

  He leaned over close to the boy’s ear and whispered, “Peter. C14.136. ‘There never would have been an infidel, if there had not been a priest.’ Right, Roy?”

  No response.

  “How about Billy Jordan, Roy? P21.365. ‘There are few pains so grievous as to have seen, divined, or experienced how an exceptional man has missed his way and deteriorated.’ Sound familiar?”

  The youth turned over very slowly but did not open his eyes.

  “I thought that would get your attention,” Vail said. He reached out, hooked the chair leg with his foot, slid it over beside the cot and sat down. He took a sip of coffee and lit a cigarette.

  The youth blinked and stared up at him through squinted, yellow eyes, aflame with loathing.

  “Hi, Roy,” Vail said pleasantly.

  Roy swung his feet off the cot, sat rigidly on the edge of it and glared at Vail with contempt. Then, without warning, he jumped up, swinging behind Vail and, using both hands, snapped Vail’s head sharply to one side. His thumb pressed hard into Vail’s voice box. Pain rippled from the base of the lawyer’s brain down his neck.

  Roy hissed in his ear. “This’s the way I did Floyd. Snap, crackle, pop! He never knew what happened.”

  “Wh-wh-who’s Floyd?” Vail managed to squeal.

  Roy twisted Vail’s head a little farther and more pain rippled down Vail’s spine. “Worked in the morgue at the hospital in Lexington, right after I left Crikside. I worked for the funeral home.”

  “Wh-wh-why did—”

  “Because I felt like it. Because he used to rag me about working in the funeral home. He was stupid and he was loud and he liked to insult people. I was in the crematorium by myself setting up for a service. Man named Metzenbauer. And Floyd came in and started his shit. I was standing behind him and I just walked up and—pow! Then I put him under Metzenbauer’s body and they went into the furnace together. Bet they’re still looking for that moron.”

  My God, Vail wondered. How many others has he killed?

  “Just a little pressure,” Roy went on. “You’d be lying on the floor with your tongue waggin’ outa your mouth just like he did.”

  “You’re too smart for that,” Vail squeaked, his voice sounding like air being let out of a balloon.

  “You’re out to destroy me. You and that fucking doctor.”

  “We’ve been over this. Nobody’s out to do you any harm.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “Okay. If this is the way you want it …” Vail squealed. “You’re so anxious to fry, go ahead. Finish the fucking job.”

  Roy applied a little more pressure and Vail moaned as the pain streaked into his brain.

  “It’s power,” Roy hissed softly in his ear. “Power isn’t about money. Power is control. I got control. At this moment, your life is in my hands. Think about it. Death is just a twist away.”

  Then suddenly, Roy let go, swinging his hands out to his sides, and Vail dropped in a sitting position on the cot. He gasped for breath and rubbed his throat. Then he stood up and started for the door.

  “Where the fuck you going?” Roy demanded.

  Vail whirled on him. “First you hurt Molly,” he said, his voice still a half whisper. “Now you hurt me. Christ, we’re trying to help you, you stupid bastard. You want to talk or do you want to stay stupid?”

  Roy started rubbing his hands rapidly together. He backed up a few steps, then paced back and forth a few times, still rubbing his hands.

  “Okay, I’m scared,” he snarled through bared teeth. “I’m fuckin’ scared to death, that what you want to hear?”

  “That’s okay, you got a right to be. It’s understandable. But relax,” said Vail. “Just listen
closely to me. And when we’re through, I have to talk to Aaron …”

  A bright morning sun was dissipating the fog as Molly rushed up the walk toward max wing. She was angry because Martin had let her sleep. Would Vail know how to deal with Aaron? The wrong words, the wrong actions, could send Aaron back into never-never land.

  She refused Linc’s offer of coffee, impatient to get into the therapy room. The young man fumbled with the keys, finally opened the main door, and then he unlocked the door to the therapy cell. She entered cautiously and with apprehension. Vail, who was sitting in the chair facing the patient, smiled as she came in.

  “Hi,” he said. “Sleep well?”

  The young man turned to face her and smiled. “Hi, Miss Molly,” he said. “Sure is good t’ see yuh.”

  She smiled with relief. “It’s good to see you too, Aaron,” she said.

  THIRTY-ONE

  As was always the case with any notorious trial, there was a carnival atmosphere about the courthouse the day the trial started. But Vail had never seen quite the spectacle that greeted the car as they turned into Courthouse Square. It was a bright, unseasonably warm day and the crowds had gathered early to get seats in Courtroom Eight on the second floor of the King’s County Superior Court. Half a dozen TV remote trucks were angled haphazardly against the curb in front of the historic old building. The sidewalk and wide marble stairs were choked with radio reporters, TV personalities, photographers and writers.

  “This is the big time, Aaron,” Vail said as the car pulled slowly through the throng of media jackals. “The hearing was a barren wasteland compared to what you’re about to witness.”

  Stampler, who wore a tweed sport jacket and gray flannels, an outfit Naomi had picked out, waved out the window as the press converged on the car and surrounded it.