Mercy (57 page)

“Dorothy Samenov was probably the most sexually confused of the three women. She almost had developed a multiple personality. Mature, aggressive, self-directed, and self-disciplined in her public-professional life. In her personal life—her sex life, for this discussion—she was weak, regressive, immature, prone to being manipulated. She was totally inept, could not make a mature decision. In her relationships with other people, she was a professional victim…of both sexes.”

“What was her reason for consulting you?” Palma asked.

“She was having night terrors, losing a tremendous amount of sleep because of it. Ultimately, it tied in to her repressed anxiety about her childhood sexual abuse, her inability to cope with it. We worked through it. I see a significant amount of that in women her age. Childhood sexual abuse is far more widespread than society wants to admit,” Broussard said, addressing Palma. “You’d be amazed at the percentage of women who live with it buried so deep in their unconscious that it distorts their lives.”

“And Sandra Moser?”

“Very much the same sort of thing, only she was married, living two lives. The stress got to be too much, manifested itself in anxiety-based disorders that were putting stress on her marriage. She came to me.”

Palma made a few notes, though she wasn’t likely to forget any of what Broussard was telling her. She would have liked to have been inside Grant’s mind. He was sitting with one leg crossed over the other, also taking notes, but Palma guessed the note-taking was more an effort to put himself in the role of a benign partner rather than a silent observer, which might have worked on Broussard’s nerves. Evidently, Grant had determined that a nonthreatening introduction was the best course initially.

“Did any of the women ever mention to you that they’d been involved in S&M?”

Broussard’s reaction was a frown and a subdued, “No.”

“Would it surprise you if they had been?”

“If they all were, yes. I don’t believe Bernadine would have been. Samenov, not so much a surprise. She could have been masochistic easily enough. Moser—no, I suppose not. I can see that both of them could have gone that way. Remember, I saw them in 1984 and 1985. A lot could have happened to them from then to now. Instability is a great catalyst.”

“You don’t feel you helped them that much?” Palma asked. “You believe they were still unstable?”

Broussard almost smiled, as if he knew that Palma thought she had caught him out, and he was going to enlighten her as to her misunderstanding.

“Instability is a relative term,” he said, tilting his head thoughtfully to one side, then straightening it as he spoke. “As I mentioned before, not many people are willing today to go to the effort of truly exploring their personalities. This is the generation of the quick fix. Dorothy Samenov wanted to be rid of the demons in her dreams. When the night terrors stopped, she broke off the therapy—‘cured.’ Sandra Moser wanted to be rid of her depression, her arousal disorder, that is, her frigidity with her husband. When these symptoms abated, she terminated her therapy—‘cured.’ Both of them still had tremendous problems to wrestle with, but the particular symptoms that had manifested themselves as a result of those problems disappeared, so they thought their problems had disappeared too. They were just squeezing the balloon.”

“Pardon?”

“You compress a bulge in one place, and it simply pops up somewhere else. Whatever ‘bulges’—or symptoms—emerged after they stopped seeing me were probably more ‘normal’ symptoms. Excessive alcohol consumption, reliance on antidepressant drugs, overeating, promiscuity, peptic ulcers. These forms of ‘instability’ are so prevalent in our society that we tend to accept them as ‘normal.’ No need to try to ‘cure’ these, certainly no need to see a psychiatrist.”

Broussard shrugged and flicked his eyebrows.

“How many clients do you see, Dr. Broussard?” Grant’s question was asked in a calm, quiet voice as he looked up from his note-taking.

Broussard regarded him for a moment. “I’d rather not say, if it’s not absolutely necessary.”

“Why is that?”

“I just don’t believe it’s germaine…if I understand the purpose of your questions.”

Grant nodded. “Then can you tell us approximately what percentage of your clients have problems similar to the ones we’ve been discussing for these three victims?”

“Most of them. About eighty percent, I’d say.”

“Anxiety-based disorders, mood disorders, sexual dysfunctions…all that?” Grant asked.

“Yes. And alcohol and/or drug abuse of varying degrees.”

Grant nodded again, but this time he kept his eyes on Broussard, not looking down to his notepad.

“Well, can you tell me what percentage are victims of childhood sexual abuse?”

Broussard hesitated, perhaps unsure as to how this might infringe on doctor-client privilege. “Again, most of them.” He thought a moment. “Actually, among the women, I can’t immediately think of one who hasn’t been sexually abused as a child.”

Palma didn’t interject, letting Grant finish his line of questioning.

“Do you think most psychiatrists have this high a percentage of clients who have been abused as children?”

“If they’re seeing as many women as I am, I think it is probable. As I said, I think the public would be shocked to know just how many female children have been through something like this. The experience has varying degrees of long-term effect, but it is always detrimental. Some women get help, some don’t.”

“Do you think this factor—childhood sexual abuse—could be the red thread in all these cases?” Grant asked.

Broussard seemed surprised to be asked the question.

Again he thought a moment before answering. “I suppose it could be. You mean, more important than some of the other common denominators?”

“Yes. The most important.”

Broussard slightly rolled his eyes with a half shrug. “Why do you ask me?”

“You’re a psychiatrist, a student of the human mind, of human nature. I thought you might have some insight into the way this man might be thinking.”

Broussard still seemed puzzled by Grant’s approach. “But I don’t know anything about…the cases, the actual killings. Surely you have some behavioral evidence that tells you something.”

“We do, yes,” Grant said.

“Well, then, if I knew some details…I can’t just speculate, pull ideas out of thin air.”

“Sure, I understand,” Grant said, “but unfortunately we can’t reveal any of that information at this point. I was just hoping you might…play with it a little. How might child abuse, sexual child abuse, play a role in such a situation? I don’t know…might the killer have been a victim of child abuse, and is this some kind of delayed revenge? But if men are the perpetrators in the vast majority of child-abuse cases, why is he killing women? Might he be a child abuser himself? If so, why isn’t he killing children? Why adult women?”

“You seem already to be making the assumption that child abuse is the red thread in these cases,” Broussard said. He nodded, looking at Grant and then at Palma. “So. First of all, I couldn’t agree with your first assumption, that the ‘vast majority’ of child abusers are men.” He shook his head. “You know, in 1896 Freud first committed himself to his now famous, or perhaps infamous, ‘seduction theory.’ In a paper he wrote in that year, he said that in analysis he had uncovered many instances of childhood sexual abuse in his female clients and that the ‘villains’ in these ‘grave’ and ‘loathsome’ acts were ‘above all nursemaids, governesses, and other servants’ as well as teachers and brothers.” He paused for emphasis. “Not fathers. Not even, mostly, men.

“Later, of course, Freud rejected the seduction theory as the etiology of all neuroses. He continued to insist that some neuroses still grew out of this very common experience, but curiously, in later discussions the ‘father’ became the principal villain in Freud’s references. It’s not clear how this transition of perpetrators came about, but never again after that initial observation by Freud himself were women generally included among the ‘villains.’”

Broussard smiled. “That is, until recently. The women’s movement has enabled more people to observe life from radically different perspectives. Some psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, counselors have begun to look at the real facts in these cases and are beginning to see beyond the often unconscious male perspective that is almost automatic among many professionals, even women.

“Example. A fourteen-year-old girl is seduced by a man. Child abuse. A fourteen-year-old boy is seduced by a woman. Lucky boy! He’s the envy of everyone. Why, this is the very symbol of the male rite of passage. It’s been romanticized in novels and the cinema many times over. Do you see the difference? Can you explain to me why one is a crime, and the other is a marvelous experience that the boy can take with him into adulthood as a fond memory? It’s the old double standard at work again. Also, our male-oriented society refuses to believe that such a woman could have a malicious intent in such a seduction. Women are nurturers, are they not?” He smiled. “Caretakers, not tormentors. If they were to do something like that, surely it would be in a tender manner. It would be a gift of her own sexuality that she had given to the boy, not something she had taken for her own selfish pleasure. Do we believe that a man can do the same? No. His greedy loins know nothing but lust.”

He looked back and forth between Palma and Grant.

“Do you both see it the same way?” Pause. “Differently, perhaps?”

He waited long enough for his point to soak in, grinning at them as though each of them had been caught out in just the kind of double standard he was describing.

“Anyway,” he said curtly, and then continued more thoughtfully, “there are indications that professionals are beginning to see through our old prejudices. One recent major survey of adult men who had been sexually abused as children revealed that only twenty-five percent had been abused by men. All of the others had been seduced by women, seven percent by their natural mothers, fifteen percent by aunts, fifteen percent by their mothers’ friends and neighbors, and the rest by sisters, stepmothers, cousins, and teachers. In more than three quarters of these cases, the women performed oral sex on their victims. Sixty-two percent of the incidents involved intercourse. Thirty-six percent of the boys were abused by two women at the same time, and twenty-three percent said they were physically harmed in ways that ranged from slapping and spanking to ritualistic or sadistic behavior. In more than half the cases the abuse lasted for more than a year.”

Broussard stopped. “Does this sound any different from the ‘horrible’ crimes committed against little girls, except that the sexes are reversed?” He answered his question by shaking his head. “The marvelous double standard, again. Men want specific things of women—to be a Madonna or to be a mistress. The mother of God, or a whore. But never, never, do they want both of these things in one woman. They want the mother of their children to be a saint and their mistresses to be whores. Men themselves, of course, can be partners to both: good father with a mistress. No problem there. But it upsets their concept of the universe if their women are both. It seems to go against ‘nature.’”

He shook his head at them as if he were chastising children.

“It’s a fantasy, of course, to believe that men and women are different in such things. Indeed, it is a mistake to think they are different at all, except in what and how they are taught to conduct themselves by a particular society within a particular culture. But that is learned behavior. Deep in our guts, men and women are alike. For better and for worse.”

When Broussard stopped talking, he was smiling and looking directly at Grant, who had forgotten to pretend to take notes and was staring at Broussard with fascination. It may have been that Broussard was smiling at Grant’s expression.

“A second point,” Broussard continued, seeing Grant’s interest. “Sexual abusers of children are typically ‘tender’ in the manner of their abuse. Their narcissism demands love, and it is love they are trying to elicit. A while ago you asked me if I knew whether any of the three women victims in these cases had ever been inclined toward sadomasochism. By that I infer that these homicides somehow involve this activity. It is not a characteristic of child abusers, so I wouldn’t think your killer would be a child abuser himself.”

“But a moment ago,” Palma interrupted, “you said that…twenty-three percent of the cases in the survey of boys sexually abused by women involved some form of sadistic behavior.”

This time Broussard’s smile was a smirk, and he nodded as if Palma’s observation were itself proof of something self-evident.

But before he had time to respond, Grant asked, “You had another point?”

“Point two,” Broussard said, quickly holding up two fingers. “Fantasy. Sadomasochists are powerfully motivated by fantasies, role-playing. The play’s the thing.’ They are stimulated by very specific acts, gestures, attire, words. It’s the same with sexual killers. But not so with pedophiles. I don’t believe your killer will be a sexual abuser of children.”

“Fine. Let’s say we rule that out,” Grant was speaking slowly, watching Broussard with an anticipatory curiosity. “How do you imagine his personality?”

Broussard seemed irritated by Grant’s persistence in general and by this question in particular. “I should think that by now any observant reader of the newspaper or true-crime magazines could answer that. It’s a personality type that has been well documented and has almost become a cliche. Introspective, solitary, studious, obsessional, vain. Rarely demonstrates violence to those who know him. A ‘perfect’ neighbor, nice guy, who in fact harbors deep, hidden aggression. If he is a mental patient or a prisoner, he will be a model inmate, never causing trouble, probably becoming a trusty or earning good-behavior time. Most likely he is impotent, and probably feels sexually inferior to women. He has bizarre interests of which his friends—I should say his ‘acquaintances,’ he probably has no real friends—are unaware. He is a habitual masturbator and reader of pornography. He probably experiences periods of anxiety or depression.”