THREE WEEKS later the forsythia was in full bloom. The slender branches of the weeping willows along the riverbank had turned chartreuse. When the sun rose, a layer of steam coated the water as it warmed to keep pace with the air. The renovation of Albert House was on hold, though Acu-Med was reportedly still keen to foot the bill. Apparently, saving face was worth any price.
In an ironic twist, Chip had been asked to consult on Daphne Smythe-Gooding's defense. He'd called me to ask if I thought she was competent to stand trial. I told him I didn't.
“But she's been a practicing psychiatrist, a member of the hospital administration right up to the day she was arrested,” he'd said.
“As long as Robert was there, she seemed to be effective. But with his death, and especially the way she had to help him die, she lost her center. She began sliding, clinging to routine, to her job. But she wasn't able to pull herself together. Channing urged her to resign. She refused. So Channing threatened to expose her, to publicly accuse her of killing Robert. Channing backed her into a corner.
“So the murder was an act of self-preservation.”
“I suppose. But I think there was more. I believe Daphne was also taking large doses of Ativan. It's for anxiety.”
“Antianxiety? Isn't that what they found in Channing Temple's autopsy results?”
“Daphne wanted us to think Channing was taking Ativan. But she wasn't. Daphne put an overdose of Ativan in Channing's tea.” That's what had confused me. The coffee that Olivia knocked over onto the floor had been Daphne's. It was the tea that was laced with Ativan. Daphne must have managed to remove the cup before the police got there.
“Problem is,” I went on, “Daphne overdid it. Used too much, then waited too long to shoot her. It was probably a replay of what she'd done to kill Robert. It was one thing to set her mind to murderâquite another thing to do it. Then Olivia shows up and complicates matters further.”
“Okay, so we have drug abuse and psychological illness. Is there a case for diminished capacity?”
Sounded good to me. “Daphne feels guilty, depressed over helping her husband commit suicide. She takes more and more benzos, and they suppress REM sleep, suppress dreams. She increases the dosage, becomes more and more disinhibited.”
“Disinhibited. Are you suggesting that she wanted to kill Channing Temple all along?”
“In a sense, yes. Mentoring relationships are complicated to begin with. Daphne loses Robert and with him, their partnership, her way of defining herself in the world. Then who is she in relation to Channing, now that her protégée, is poised to make a real contribution to medicine with her research and succeed in ways that Daphne never could? Feelings of jealousy are inevitable. Then Channing sees her mentor failing, tries to get her to resign. She threatens the only way of life that Daphne has left.
“What we're seeing here is the psychic collapse of an individual. Between the guilt over killing her husband and chronic benzodiazepine use, she becomes nervous, insecure. To compensate, she
becomes rigid and inflexible. A formerly tidy person, her office slides into disarray.”
“Sounds like the drugs she was taking were the opposite of what she needed,” Chip said.
“Exactly. Daphne did a U-turn after she killed Channing and turned her into a saint. Psychologists call it reaction formation. It's a defense mechanism. For example, we take something and turn it into its opposite. We don't get a promotion at work, and we tell ourselves we didn't want all that extra work anyway. This is more extreme. Daphne fears Channing overtaking her, kills her, and then puts her on the pedestal, making Channing exactly what Daphne feared she would become.”
“Why kill Jensen?” Chip asked.
“Daphne realized how Destler and Jensen were using Channing's diary to destroy her reputation. She knew Jensen had taken Channing's research. It was one thing to kill her protégée, another thing to destroy her good name. Jensen and Destler seemed intent on doing just that.”
I recommended a psychologist to help the defense.
Things had returned to normal at the Pearce. As I swung by the nurses' station to get my mail, Gloria was grinning at me. She waved a sheet of pink paper like a victory flag. “Check your mail,” she said.
I'd gotten the same pink paper. It was a memo from our CEO, “RE: Reorganization.” It read like a press release, because that's what it was. “In order to improve operations efficiency, Finance has been reorganized ⦠.” Bottom line: Destler's operations would report to a new controller. Finance's responsibilities were being redefined. Hopefully, less independence and more oversight. At the bottom, tacked on like a P.S.: “Arnold O. Destler, M.D., has decided to shift his focus in the hospital and will be managing special projects.”
Special projects and the door were usually about a half inch apart at the Pearce. No one ever just got fired. Though I suspected
that in this case there wouldn't be the usual round of good-bye parties.
“The psychopath,” Gloria said. “See, someone finally put him out of his misery.” She high-fived me.
“Do you know what's happening to Virginia?” I asked.
“She's staying where she is, reporting to the new controller.”
“She's pretty amazing,” I said. “Every time there's a tsunami around here, she manages to sail through unscathed.”
I glanced through the rest of my mail. A yellow flyer announced a new Program of Education on Medical Ethics for all staff. It was the first initiative undertaken by a new committee to review ethical standards for doctors. The CEO had called me with an invitation to serve on the committee, but I politely declined. “We're quite determined that this is never going to happen again,” he'd said.
Maybe so. Nevertheless, if the rest of what was in my mailbox was any measure of what he was up against, it would take more than a committee and some training. There was a packet advertising a new medication for hyperactivity, formulated specifically for children under five. Along with it came twenty-five refrigerator magnets of giraffes emblazoned with the name of the drug.
Beneath that were two envelopes that had to have been delivered by handâno stamp, only a handwritten
Dr. Zak
on the envelopes. They were invitations to a harbor cruise and to a dinner at the Ritz, sponsored by pharmaceutical companies eager for a little mind share to deliver their message.
Last, there was an ivory envelope containing an engraved announcement. The first annual Channing Temple Lecture on Psychiatry and Ethics would take place in a few months. It was the perfect memorial. Jess Dyer would be one of the speakers. She was staying on after her residency as a research fellow, to prepare Channing's Kutril study for publication.
I checked my watch. I was expecting a patient in about five minutes. “I'll be up in my office,” I told Gloria.
“No you won't. Some folks are here to see you.”
I turned around. There was Matthew Farrell with a young
woman I almost didn't recognize. Olivia's hair was back to its natural blond. She was wearing a short skirt, a sweater, and a pair of clunky green combat boots. A blond, green-booted Olive Oyl.
She came forward and gave me a hug. She felt pretty solid for a skinny little thing. She was wearing Channing's locket on a choker of thin red velvet.
I extended a hand to Matthew Farrell. He gave me a limp shake.
“How's your dad doing?” I asked Olivia. I knew Drew had been drying out at a rehab center in the Berkshires.
“He's home again. Says he's going to ninety AA meetings in ninety days. He's up to five.”
“And what about you?” I asked.
“Clean,” Olivia said. “I'm not even craving it.”
“Excellent.” I paused to examine her more closely. She looked as if she was getting enough sleep. “And the rest of it?”
She shrugged. “Okay.”
I knew she wasn't really. “You will be,” I said.
“It would be worse if I thought she'd killed herself.”
“Not your mom.”
“I'm seeing the therapist you referred me to. It helps. She says I'm prone to depression.”
“And?”
“I need to monitor myself.”
“Sound right to you?”
She thought about that. “Yeah, I guess. What do you think?”
“I think each one of us is different. The testing we did showed that you do have this difficulty processing the world around you. That means that when you get into a complicated situation, you may feel out of your depth, not sure what to do. The bad part is that the confusion can make you feel anxious and bad about yourself. Your therapist is right. Depression is something you need to be on guard againstâat least until you find what you're passionate about in life.”
I went on. “Don't forget, it's also compounded by your age. Your body is changing, your brain is being constantly barraged by hormones.
It's natural for teenagers to experiment with different personas. But I suspect, when the dust settles, you'll be someone of substance.”
Olivia stared down at her feet. She looked as if she wasn't sure how to handle the compliment. Finally, she said, “I brought you something.”
She elbowed Matthew. He produced a small, flat package wrapped in blue paper with a yellow ribbon. He gave it to me.
“You shouldn't have ⦔ I started.
Matthew snatched the packet back. “Shouldn't ⦠have ⦔
Olivia put her hand on his shoulder. “Dr. Zak doesn't mean that, really. See his face? The mouth?”
“Smiling,” Matthew said, and hesitantly offered the package to me again.
“Thank you very much,” I said, taking it this time.
I was impressed with the way Olivia was helping Matthew, acting as interpreter, while at the same time teaching him how to interpret on his own.
“Aren't you going to open it?” Olivia asked.
I slid off the ribbon and tore away the paper. It was a framed picture. I turned it over. A black-and-white photographâtwo women in diaphanous dresses, arranged in the crevices of a rock formation. A third one was intertwined in the limbs of a windswept cypress that grew up out of the rocks. It was erotic, disturbing. It was signed in the lower right corner: Annie Brigman, '08.
“I can't possibly ⦔
“You have to. Daddy got it for me for my birthday. And to tell you the truth”âOlivia screwed up her faceâ“I don't much like her work anymore. And I know you do.”
I stared at the photograph, the young women merging into nature and disappearing. “Olivia, this isn't you,” I said.
“I know.” Olivia sounded surprised and pleased. “I made Daddy get me a digital camera. I'm a lot more interested in making my own pictures than I am in collecting them.”
I said good-bye to Olivia and Matthew, and carried the photograph up to my office. I propped it up on my bookcase.
There were a couple of voice messages waiting. One was from my mother. An invitation to join her and Mr. Kuppel, her friend who worked part-time at our local video store. The two of them were going to a Bette Davis retrospective at the Brattle Theater. The movie was
All About Eve
, a rich melodrama in which a backstabbing starlet destroys her older mentor. Mentoring is such a complicated dance, made more so when the leader weakens, when the follower strengthens. Missteps, hurt feelings, jealously, seem inevitable. In real life the drama had played itself out as double tragedy.
I called back and told my mother thanks, but I had another engagementâand I hung up before she could ask what. I opened up my calendar. I twisted my wedding ring as I glanced over the page filled with today's meetings and appointments. It was the evening and dinner with Annie that I was looking forward to. Tonight I'd unplug the phone, turn off my beeper. I savored the anticipation.
As I thought about that grilled steak and the special cabernet I'd been saving, I found I'd taken off my ring. I gazed down at it. I remembered when Kate slipped it on my finger during our marriage vows. She'd looked radiant, with flowers in her hair and a simple dress of white lace with a brilliant pink sash. I smiled at the memory. Even a few months ago, remembering brought only pain.
I kissed the ring and dropped it into my pocket.