Mind Games (2 page)

When you asked me to take the lead, to waltz you down the byways of memory, I was briefly lost. Where to begin? Was I to pick up the thread a year ago, when disintegration began? A decade ago, when there were youth and hope? A lifetime
ago, before the patterning of childhood warped the bell curve of normality into the shape of a burned-out light bulb? How to begin my unburdening, how to describe the clutter of neurotransmitters and synapses, hormones and hemostats, that comprise Timothy Jason Dare?

Sorry I emoted so much. I’ve cooled off. A couple of beers, some soothing jazz … (Picture this skinny geek in his under-shorts aboard his old sailboat tooting mournfully on a clarinet. Dispossessed of home, that’s where I live now, my classic wooden cutter, the
Altered Ego.)

Anyway, having botched today’s first session, let me whip my thoughts into line, reassemble them in more coherent fashion, to prepare for our next session. (By the way, Friday afternoons are fine, I’m rarely in court then, and I’ll be able to use weekends to recover from whatever catharses come my way.)

To put my fears in perspective and to set the stage for what follows, let’s go back six years ago to a scene so graphic that my mother, if she cared to lift it for one of her books, might be forced to tone it down. (We haven’t got around to Victoria Dare, who, having published a horror novel, has been sued for libel by an overly sensitive small-town politician who saw himself portrayed as the killer. The trial is only a couple of weeks away. An added stressor.)

We are in Dr. Barbara Loews Wiseman’s consulting room. She is staring at a raised dagger, desperately pleading, trying to persuade Bob Grundison that God has not ordered him to kill her, that she isn’t Satan in the guise of a psychiatrist. Imagine the dagger descending, thrusting …

The image is fixed? Now let’s fast-forward to a couple of weeks ago – this was just before Sally cut me adrift – to a hearing to determine whether this killer might be released by Order-in-Council onto the already treacherous streets of Vancouver.

The inquiry was at the provincial mental hospital, Riverview. Usually I enjoy my trips there, my ambles about the grounds
with patients. But this promised to be a strenuous day of listening to the Grundison family’s hired psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers: I was on a panel struck by the provincial cabinet – they were tossing us the buck; if Grundison were to celebrate his freedom with a psychotic rampage, they would blame the experts.

I arrived slightly frazzled from the long traffic-jammed taxi ride to Riverview, and before we convened I apologized to all – though I was only fifteen minutes late. The panel consisted of me, Dr. Irwin Connelly, and Dr. Harriet Loussier, the hospital’s chief psychologist. A pair of lawyers for the Grundison family was present, along with several medical experts (one of them my nemesis, Dr. Herman Schulter) and a clutch of supporters and relatives there to bear witness to their love of Bob Grundison. He’d been excused from the room – we wanted to speak frankly about him.

Also present were his parents. Robert Grundison Sr. is a staunch pillar of capitalism, owns several tall buildings, shopping centres, a hockey team. But he’s highly regarded: a philanthropist who gives handsomely to Christian charities. His confident body language, even as he sat, expressed power and control. In contrast, his pink-complexioned wife, Thelma, exuded an odd serenity – though with the glassy-eyed aspect of a lush. Sitting next to them was the Honourable Ephriam Wright, an Alberta cabinet minister and evangelical pastor with the unusual reputation, given those careers, of brightness.

The day dragged on. The experts (three of whom, including Schulter, had testified at his trial) concurred: as an adolescent, Grundison had suffered occasional delusions (talking to God, chiefly, though the evidence was vague and came mainly from members of his church), then was revisited by his disease six years ago, when he was twenty-one. Now, Grundison was not only stabilized but cured.

Much was made by Herman Schulter (the clubby, deferential chair of my discipline committee – would he yank my
practising certificate if I denied freedom to a killer?) of Grundison having resolved “aggressive behaviour patterns” by channelling his energy into sports. Grundy, as he’s often called, had formed a couple of leagues while at Riverview, basketball and softball. Schulter’s view was that this showed enterprise, leadership.

I listened to such confident prognoses with growing discomfort. I was on this panel because I had a history with Grundison. Six years ago, new in practice, puffed with arrogance (behold the youngest winner of the B.F. Skinner Prize at Stanford), I was the only witness the Crown could find who dared to claim Grundy was faking schizophrenia.

Grundison was arrested several minutes after leaving Barbara Wiseman’s office, wandering around Broadway and Cambie, ostensibly in a daze. Schulter, who was rushed to the cells to interview him, testified that his affect was flat and shallow, a vacant stare, face muscles flaccid, eyes lifeless, toneless, his memory train not intact.

I interviewed Grundy at length, gave him tests. Not psychotic but psychopathic, I concluded, a cold-hearted killer.

So now I was in a conundrum. I’ve never believed (nor, I suspect, did Barbara Loews Wiseman) that Bob Grundison was delusional, but the rest of the world seemed to believe that – who was some long-haired, wild-eyed forensic psychiatrist to disagree? And how could I argue he was insane now, and required continued treatment? However psychopathic, he was mentally competent by the definition of the law. He cannot be tried again for murder, yet he’s a murderer.

Ephriam Williams stirred the room to wakefulness with a fervent speech in praise of the killer: athlete, Boy Scout, never in trouble, gosh darn it, he’d known the lad since he was old enough to throw a snowball. A stirring, rodomontade sermon, urging us, as doctors of the mind, to believe in the healing powers of our own great science, to pronounce this fine young
man fit to return to the bosom of his loving parents, of whom young Bob was the only issue.

As he was reminding us of Jesus’ mandate to forgive, I remarked to myself that the late Dr. Wiseman didn’t seem to be represented here, or much remembered. She’d only seen Bob four times before dying at his hand.

Though her file on Grundy indicated she’d made little progress in bringing him to terms with a seething, barely suppressed anger, one of her entries has always intrigued me:
I see no sign of a breakthrough. I sense a terror lurking within him, but its source and character are not clear
.

Over lunch, Connelly, Loussier, and I engaged in heated debate. The conversation went like this, give or take a phrase:

I said, “We have to find some way to keep this misfit inside.”

“But he’s not psychotic, Tim,” Connelly said. “That’s a dilemma for you, isn’t it? You never thought he was legally insane in the first place.”

“It’s a different kind of insanity – moral insanity.”

“There’s no question that he has a severe antisocial personality disorder.” This was Dr. Loussier. In her sixties, a formal woman, and wise, she’s been chief psychologist here for five of Grundison’s six years.

“Statistically, there have to be seventy thousand APDs walking the streets of Vancouver.” Irwin is in love with his statistics. He is a kindly old fellow, mentored me through some difficult times. “They’ve set up a massive system of home support. He’ll be watched at all times. What can happen if we let him go?”

“A repeat. Maybe it’ll be you next time, Irwin. He’s a dangerous psychopath.”

“Once capable, always capable,” said Loussier. “Five episodes of violent behaviour within the facility. Those are the ones reported. No one injured, thank God.”

“Because they were all attacks on inanimate objects,” Irwin said. “I’ve been known to kick a chair myself. I agree with
Schulter. He has learned to take out his anger in essentially harmless ways.”

“Like ripping apart a mattress,” I said. “Smashing a radio.”

“Both those events were early on. He’s been off inhibitors for three years. Damn it, Tim, it’ll look bad if we don’t let him go – it’s as if we’re protecting our own.”

“Maybe we
should
protect our own.”

The image thing, though mentioned only once, had a subliminal effect upon the remainder of our discussions. Would we be seen as biased against one who offed a shrink? If Grundison had killed a lawyer, might we send him home with a wave and a smile?

I could not come up with a justification for keeping Grundison in the system. I’d sworn on oath to a Canadian jury that by the McNaughten rules the man wasn’t insane. But the eminent Dr. Schulter and three other psychiatrists had testified to reverse effect and been believed, and Grundison had been found not guilty. Now these same psychiatrists were of the opinion he was of sound mind. Who was I to try to undo all of that?

So I caved in. “May the Lord have mercy on our souls.”

“Let’s see some rigid terms of release,” Loussier said. “Abstention from alcohol, for one.” When arrested, Grundison had a medium-level reading of .05. “We’ll want reports on how his counselling program is going.”

“From those hacks his family hired? Let’s get someone independent, who can’t be bought. I want to have a few words with him before we let him go.”

Having prejudged the issue, we returned to the hearing room and hurried along the remaining witnesses. Thelma Grundison, in a somewhat wheezy voice, went on about how much she doted on her son. She would be providing stern but loving care at The Tides, their manse in Ladner, by the moiling waters of the Fraser’s South Arm. Her husband, I gathered (he
didn’t testify), would try to be there when he wasn’t away on business – most of his companies are in Calgary. I had the sense of a long-continuing pretence of marriage, a de facto but not acknowledged separation.

Other witnesses included a mental health social worker who had set up the home-care program, and an anger counsellor who would work with him this summer.

Last of all, we heard from Grundy himself. He’d been on the grounds, playing softball, the Aggressives, perhaps, against the Incoherents. Freshly showered, he made his way to a chair at the front: he’s light-footed, despite his muscular build. I remember having noted six years ago an athletic grace to his movements. His coiffed, blow-dried hair added to the power image he sought to portray.

He is of medium height, has his mother’s red complexion, and his features are marred only by an indentation on the chin, where a puck had struck him. Otherwise, he’s quite handsome. Many young women had been attracted to him – to their misfortune. He’d been seeing Dr. Wiseman for his inability to stop bashing them when undergoing his aggressive behaviour patterns.

Grundy worked the room, pausing to squeeze arms and shake hands. He kissed his mother delicately on the cheek. His gesture of affection to his father was interesting, a light-fisted blow to the shoulder, a jock-jocular gesture. Ephriam Williams squeezed Grundy’s elbow, ruffled his hair. I found all these physical dynamics irksome. It was as if pressing the flesh was making do for true feeling, an easy substitute.

Irwin asked him to sit, and introduced himself. “You know Dr. Loussier, of course, and you’ve met Dr. Dare. He wants to ask you a few questions.”

Grundison’s look held mine longer than cordiality required, suggesting he was overplaying advice not to drop, shift, or bat his eyes. In particular (Schulter doubtless advised), always look
directly at Dr. Timothy Dare, the charlatan who has achieved a much-inflated reputation for his accurate reading of flared nostrils, twitches, and general body discomfort.

“How are you doing, Mr. Grundison?” I asked.

“Nervous, I guess. Not bad. That sounds formal, everyone calls me Bob. Or Grundy.” A slight smile. Still no loss of eye contact.

“How did the softball game go?”

“Fourteen to eight.” He laughed. “Over five innings.”

“That must have helped your batting average.”

“I hit a few.” He broke contact and focused his eyes on neutral space behind me. Avoid aggressive phrases, he’d been told. “I dropped a couple of easy flies too.” Be prepared to admit to your faults and weaknesses.

“But that’s not your best sport, is it?”

“No. It’s hockey, Dr. Dare.”

Grundy had made it to Junior A, an unrefined player, an enforcer. Following that, he’d gone to college for two years, the last semester aborted by his arrest for murder. “So you’re going back to university.”

“Yes, to continue my psychology studies at SFU.”

“Why psychology?”

“I want to help people. I think I owe it.”

I wasn’t believing a word. Would Simon Fraser University even have him? Wouldn’t they be concerned he’d mistake a social sciences professor for the Antichrist?

“You still have only a vague memory of killing Dr. Wiseman?”

A hesitation, then he blurted, “That wasn’t me. That was someone else.”

He reacted as if he’d said the wrong thing; his medical witnesses, too, stirred uncomfortably at this hint of the divided self.

“If not you, who was it?”

“No, I didn’t mean it that way. It was me, but … I was ill. I had a psychotic episode.”

“You’re sure it wasn’t someone else, Bob?”

“No, not at all, and I know what you’re getting at. Multiple personality – I think it’s called dissociative identity disorder.”

He’d learned such phrases in college. But I’d implied before, to no effect, that he knew how to fake a delusional episode.

“Dr. Dare, I know that you have your doubts about me, but I’m willing to prove myself to you. I’m going to continue the anger management. I’m not denying that I have a problem with my temper, even though I don’t know where it comes from. I intend to keep looking for answers to it, for answers to myself.”

Well rehearsed, well spoken – with the convincing earnestness of the true sociopath. He’d scored high on the Hare checklist, on both the antisocial and emotional detachment scales. But at that first interview I had picked up elusive nuances and shades, undertones pointing to his guilt. How to express that convincingly to a jury?