Four Scarpetta Novels (17 page)

Lucy gives each boy a ride around the parking lot while their mother stands all alone in the middle of it and smiles and waves and wipes her eyes.

 

Benton records Gladys Self from his office phone inside McLean's Neuroimaging Lab. As is true of her famous daughter, the name Self suits her.

“If you're wondering why that rich daughter of mine doesn't put me in some nice mansion in Boca,” Mrs. Self says, “well, sir, I don't want to be in Boca or Palm Beach or anywhere but right here in Hollywood, Florida. In my run-down little oceanfront apartment on the boardwalk.”

“Why might that be?”

“To pay her back. Think how that will look when they find me dead in a dump like this someday. Let's see what that does to her popularity.” She chortles.

“Sounds like you might have a hard time saying anything nice about her,” Benton says. “And I do need several minutes of your praising her, Mrs. Self. Just as I'm going to need a few minutes of your being neutral and then critical.”

“Why's she doing this, anyway?”

“I explained it at the beginning of our conversation. She volunteered for a scientific research project I'm conducting.”

“That daughter of mine doesn't volunteer for shineola unless there's something she wants out of it. Never known her to do anything for the pure reason of helping others. Hogwash. Ha! A family emergency. She's lucky I didn't get on CNN and tell the world she's lying. Let's see. Wonder what the truth might be. Let me follow the clues. You're one of these police psychologists at what's the name of your hospital? McLean? Oh, that's right. Where all the rich and famous go. Just the sort of place she'd go to if she had to go somewhere, and I know a good reason why. Would knock you out if you knew. Bingo! She's a patient, that's what this is all about!”

“As I've said, she's part of a project I'm conducting.”
Dammit.
He warned Dr. Self about this. If he called her mother to make the recording, she might suspect that Dr. Self is a patient. “I'm not allowed to discuss anything about her situation—where she is or what she's doing or why. I can't divulge information about any subjects in our studies.”

“I sure could divulge a thing or two to you. I knew it! She's worth studying, all right. What normal person would get on TV and do what she does, twisting people's minds, their lives, like that tennis player who just got murdered. Bet you dollars to donuts Marilyn's somehow to blame for that, had her on her TV show, getting into all this personal information from her for all the world to see. It was embarrassing, can't believe that little girl's family allowed it.”

Benton's seen a copy of it. Mrs. Self is right. It was too much exposure and made Drew vulnerable and accessible. Those are the ingredients for being stalked, if she was. It isn't the purpose of his call, but he can't resist probing. “I'm wondering how your daughter happened to get Drew Martin on her show. Did they know each other?”

“Marilyn can get anybody she wants. When she calls me on special occasions, mostly she brags about this celebrity and that. Only the way she says it, they're all lucky to meet her, not the other way around.”

“I have a feeling you don't see her very often.”

“Do you really think she'd go to the trouble to see her own mother?”

“Now, she's not completely devoid of feelings, is she?”

“As a little girl she could be sweet, I know that's hard to believe. But something went haywire when she turned sixteen. She ran off with some playboy and had her heart broken, came back home and we had quite a time of it. Did she tell you about that?”

“No, she didn't.”

“That figures. She'll go on and on about her father killing himself and how horrible I am and all the rest. But her own failures don't exist. That includes people. You'd be surprised if you knew the people she's managed to excommunicate from her life for no good reason except they're inconvenient. Or maybe someone shows a side of her the world's not supposed to see. That's a killable offense.”

“I assume you don't mean that literally.”

“Depends on your definition.”

“Let's start with what's positive about her.”

“She tell you she makes everybody sign a confidentiality agreement?”

“Even you?”

“Do you want to know the real reason I live like this? Because I can't afford her so-called generosity. I live off Social Security and what retirement I got from working all my life. Marilyn never did a damn thing for me and then had the nerve to tell me I had to sign one of these confidentiality agreements, you see. She said if I didn't, I was on my own no matter how old and sick I got. I didn't sign it. And I don't talk about her anyway. But I could. I sure could.”

“You're talking to me.”

“Well, now, she told me to, didn't she? She gave you my phone number because it suits whatever little selfish purpose she has this time. And I'm her weakness. She can't resist. Just itching to hear what I'll say. Validates her beliefs about herself.”

“What I need you to try,” Benton says, “is to imagine you're telling her what you like about her. There must be something. For example, ‘I've always admired how bright you are' or ‘I'm so proud of your success,' et cetera.”

“Even if I don't mean it?”

“If you can't say something positive, I'm afraid we can't do this.” Which would be fine with him.

“Don't worry. I can lie as well as she can.”

“Then the negative. Such as, I wish you were more generous or less arrogant, or whatever comes to mind.”

“Easy as pie.”

“Finally, neutral comments. The weather, shopping, what you've been doing, things like that.”

“Don't trust her. She'll fake it and ruin your study.”

“The brain can't fake it,” Benton says. “Not even hers.”

 

An hour later. Dr. Self, in a shimmering red silk pants suit and no shoes, is propped up with pillows on her bed.

“I understand your feeling this is unnecessary,” Benton says, turning pages in the pale blue
Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis 1 Disorders
patient edition.

“Do you need a script, Benton?”

“To keep things consistent in this study, we SCID with the book. Each time for each subject. I'm not going to ask you things that are obvious and irrelevant, such as your professional status.”

“Let me help you out,” she says. “I've never been a patient in a psychiatric hospital. I don't take any medications. I don't drink too much. I usually sleep five hours a night. How many hours does Kay sleep?”

“Have you lost or gained much weight recently?”

“I maintain my weight perfectly. What does Kay weigh these days? Does she eat a lot when she's lonely or depressed? All that fried food down there.”

Benton flips pages. “What about strange sensations in your body or on your skin?”

“Depends on who I'm with.”

“Do you ever smell or taste things other people can't smell or taste?”

“I do a lot of things other people can't.”

Benton looks up at her. “I don't think the study is a good idea, Dr. Self. This isn't constructive.”

“That's not for you to judge.”

“Do you think this is constructive?”

“You haven't gotten to the mood chronology. Aren't you going to ask me about panic attacks?”

“Have you ever had them?”

“Sweating, trembling, dizzy, racing heart. Fear I might die?” She gazes thoughtfully at him, as if he's the patient. “What did my mother say on the tape?”

“What about when you first got here?” he says. “You seemed rather much in a panic over an e-mail. The one you mentioned to Dr. Maroni when you first got here and haven't mentioned since.”

“Imagine your little assistant thinking she was going to SCID me.” She smiles. “I'm a psychiatrist. It would be like a beginner playing Drew Martin in tennis.”

“How are you feeling about what happened to her?” he asks. “It's been on the news that you had her on your show. Some people have suggested the killer may have fixed on her because of…”

“As if my show was the only time she was on TV. I have so many people on my show.”

“I was going to say because of her visibility. Not her appearance on your show, specifically.”

“I'll probably win another Emmy because of that series. Unless what happened…”

“Unless what happened?”

“That would be grossly unfair,” Dr. Self says. “If the Academy were prejudiced because of what happened to her. As if that has anything to do with the quality of my work. What did my mother say?”

“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?”