by Barbara Hall
“I don’t know,” David said, hoping to end the discussion.
“Either a thing is true or it’s not,” Jen insisted.
It was exhausting. All of this was exhausting. Maybe it was why he said what he said next.
“It’s like the Heisenberg principle. Before that, everyone thought light was a wave. No, maybe a particle. Then when they saw it behave both ways they decided it could be both. Just so they could move on. So they didn’t have to ask, ‘Why is it both? How is it both?’ They left it at both and no substantial work has been done in the area of electrodynamics since. Because they didn’t want to break down the paradox. They didn’t want to know that light might be intelligent. That it might make the choice of whether to behave as particle or wave. They didn’t want to know.”
“David…”
“Like when Newton discovered that all color came from white light. People didn’t want to know. They jumped off buildings.”
“David, fuck’s sake, we’re not talking about physics. We’re talking about human emotion. Human involvement.”
“You can’t go around pain, Jen. You can only go through it,” David said.
“Jesus. What’s up with you? You’re a psychiatrist. You’re telling me there’s no way around it? You don’t give your clients drugs?”
“Patients. I give my patients drugs when I’ve exhausted all other possibilities.”
“I’ve exhausted all other possibilities.”
“You haven’t even started.”
“This is so easy for you to say. No one has ever tried to kill you.”
He thought about that. He thought about the man who had dragged him out of his wrecked car and hit him. He remembered that man’s face. That man wanted to kill him. But he hadn’t taken it personally. He took it as a mental breakdown. No, less than that. Just an impulse to give in to the weaker side. Rage, and the target was moving.
“Dr. Sutton,” Sebastian is saying. “Are you still with me?”
David looks at him, coming out of his trance. He has allowed himself to drift off, something he never does. Or thinks that he never does.
“Yes, Sebastian, I apologize.”
“It’s okay. Shrinks have problems, too, I guess.”
And this is when his phone rings. It is his private cell phone, which he keeps on during sessions because it is only for emergencies. It never rings. Everyone in his life knows what a true emergency in his world amounts to.
“I’m sorry, I have to get this.”
“No problem,” Sebastian says and takes out his own phone to check his emails and messages.
David scrambles through his briefcase and finds the phone and looks at the number which is unfamiliar to him. He is tempted to ignore it. But he sees that Sebastian is smiling at something on his iPhone screen and decides to take the moment.
“This is Dr. Sutton.”
“Dr. Sutton, this is Melinda Frankenheimer at Oceanside.”
“I’m in session,” he says.
“I understand. We have this listed as your emergency number.”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s your patient, Sarah Lange.”
His heart catches. “Is she all right?”
“Well, we’re not entirely sure. She has disappeared.”
“Disappeared? Into thin air?”
“In the gardener’s truck.”
“Excuse me?”
“Sometime this morning. She stole his truck. He often leaves the keys in it. We’ve asked him to stop doing that. Anyway, she must have known. She must have been thinking about this for a while.”
“But why? She’s voluntary. She can leave anytime.”
“Perhaps you should come out here. We can speak more freely. And the police want to have a word with you.”
“The police?”
“It’s grand larceny, Dr. Sutton. And kidnapping.”
“Kidnapping?”
“She took another patient with her.”
His palms are sweating and he feels the way he did in medical school, the one time he thought about cheating on a lab test. He hadn’t done it but the fact that he thought about it felt like some tangible malfeasance.
“But why would they want to talk to me?” he asks.
“Because you’re her doctor.”
“But I don’t know anything.”
“Dr. Sutton, you’re not a suspect. You’re just a witness. Can you please come out here?”
Reason descends on him like a steel trap. He’s in the grips of it. He’s not sure why he ever abandoned it. He feels ashamed for his momentary lapse. “Yes, of course. I’ll be right there.”
He hangs up and finds Sebastian still staring at his iPhone, giggling.
“Sebastian, I am terribly sorry. There’s an emergency. I have to cut our session short.”
Sebastian looks up. “Uh-oh. Did one of your patients off themselves?”
“No. Nothing like that.”
“I guess you get a lot of that, though.”
“No. As a matter of fact, that very rarely happens.”
“You don’t have to worry about me, either. I’m just gonna go home and eat some blueberry Eggos and barf them.”
“That’s your prerogative.”
“Here again, just kidding. You need to lighten up, Doc.”
“Same time next week? Or if you’d like to schedule an additional hour.”
“Don’t worry about me. Go ahead. You’re the color of tapioca. It’s not attractive.”
There are several police cars in front of Oceanside when he arrives. He shows his credentials and they wave him through. Inside, the common room is completely empty. A kind of lockdown has occurred, he surmises. All of the trauma patients sent to their rooms like children who shouldn’t see their parents’ fighting. A very young woman in an ill-fitting business suit approaches him. She has been pacing and looking at her phone. She seems to recognize him right away, though they’ve never met.
“Dr. Sutton? I’m Courtney Dreiser. I handle P.R. for Oceanside.”
“P.R.?”
“Come this way.”
He follows her down a long hallway to the administrative offices, where he hasn’t been since his first interview. Courtney’s heels clack on the tile floor. He feels a sweat breaking out on his forehead and he wipes it with his jacket sleeve. Courtney casts a sympathetic glance over her shoulder.
“Big times here at Oceanside,” she says.
He says nothing to that. Her heels clack.
“What with the incident with Dr. McCrady. Now this.”
He still says nothing.
“Dr. Frankenheimer is anxious to see you.”
“All right,” he says.
They arrive at Dr. Frankenheimer’s door and she smiles at him and taps. A brief wait and then the door is opened by a man with sallow skin and a moustache, wearing a weathered jacket and polyester tie.
Courtney says, “Detective Jackson, Dr. Sutton.”
“Oh, yeah, thanks, hon,” Detective Jackson says.
Courtney takes the time to deliver an eye roll before clacking away.
Dr. Frankenheimer stands and comes around her desk and offers her hand, as if they are about to enter into a complicated business deal.
“Dr. Sutton. Thank you so much for coming. You’ve met Detective Jackson.”
“Yes.”
Jackson gives him what appears to be a smirk and collapses into a leather armchair and takes out a notebook. David remains standing until Dr. Frankenheimer gestures toward the chair opposite the detective. He doesn’t want to sit but he knows he must sit. He does.
“Well, this is quite a predicament,” Frankenheimer says, leaning against her desk. She is staring at the two of them as if they have somehow been involved in a high school prank. He can feel Jackson looking at him but does not return the look.
“You can imagine,” Frankenheimer says, “how difficult this is for us. On top of what happened with Jen.”
“Excuse me, who’s
Jen?” Jackson asks.
“Dr. McCrady,” David says.
“Yes, Dr. McCrady. I’ve already explained, David, that you and she are intimately acquainted.”
David clears his throat. “I don’t see how that’s relevant.”
Jackson says. “In the past two weeks here at Oceanside, there have been incidents of abnormal behavior. And you bear some connection to both of those incidents.”
“I’m sorry. What happened with Jen…Dr. McCrady…really had nothing to do with me. We don’t even work on the same side.”
“Side?” Jackson asks.
Frankenheimer says, “We isolate the groups here. Mr. Kelly and Dr. McCrady were on the addiction side. Dr. Sutton works exclusively on the trauma side.”
“I see.”
Jackson writes something down and there is an insufferable pause. Frankenheimer lifts her eyebrows in David’s direction and he has no idea what all this eye language is supposed to mean. David clears his throat again.
“Perhaps if someone could tell me what happened,” he says.
Jackson says, “What happened is that five days after your girlfriend was assaulted here, one of your patients stole the gardener’s truck and took off with another patient here. William Cranston. Do you know him?”
“No. I am not on staff here. I am called in to consult. Ms. Lange is my only patient here at the moment.”
“Except she’s not here at the moment,” Jackson says.
“I’m just finding this out, Detective. I need a moment to process it.”
“Sure, I understand.”
“Would you like some water?” Dr. Frankenheimer asks.
“No, thanks.”
He sees that his hands are shaking and he interlaces his fingers hoping to control them. He feels the detective watching him. He tries not to take it personally. It’s what detectives do. They detect.
Frankenheimer takes a deep breath. “David, we have no idea what’s happening here. I’ve been at Oceanside for ten years and we’ve never had anything…anything…remotely like this occur. For the most part, this is a voluntary hospital. People don’t have to run away.”
“I’m aware.”
“And we have almost no record of violence. Some patients when they first come in fight against detox. But we don’t have patients suddenly attacking the therapists. That just doesn’t happen.”
“Are you accusing me of something?”
Jackson waves a hand and says, “You understand, I’m a cop, and I’m trained to follow evidence. And sometimes evidence looks like coincidence. We have a big coincidence here.”
“Yes,” David says.
“Now maybe it’s just a coincidence, your connection to these two incidents, because coincidences happen.”
“Yes, they do.”
“But you see how I have to look into those kinds of things.”
“Certainly. Of course.”
“I’d like to talk to you about your patient, Sarah Lange.”
“That’s confidential information.”
“We don’t want you to open the books,” Frankenheimer says. “Just lead us in some direction. Last time you saw her, which I believe was on the same day that Dr. McCrady had her incident?”
“The day after.”
“So the day after. Did she give any indication that she was thinking of doing something…unusual?”
“No,” he says.
Jackson leans forward in his chair. “Was she acting strangely?”
“No. If anything, she seemed calmer than usual.”
“But David,” says Frankenheimer, “isn’t that a classic indication of some kind of decision or resolution outside the box?”
“It can be. But this was in the wake of an unusual event. She could have been in shock. I was looking for something in her that had been triggered. I couldn’t find it.”
“And she didn’t say anything about wanting to leave?” Jackson asks.
“No. Sarah didn’t want to leave here. She checked herself in. As a matter of fact, we were working on why she felt she needed to be here.”
“And why did she?”
David looks at his shoes. “I can’t answer that.”
Jackson says, “Did she ever mention this other inmate? Excuse me, patient? Willie Cranston?”
“No.”
“You didn’t realize they knew each other?”
“No.”
Jackson turns to Frankenheimer. “Did you ever see them socializing?”
“I don’t walk the floors here, Detective.”
He turns back to David. “Did you?”
“No. Ms. Lange mostly keeps to herself.”
Jackson stares at his notebook and finally looks up. “Does she have any family nearby?”
“She doesn’t have any family at all,” David says.
“According to her.”
“That’s all I have to go on.”
“But you have no reason to think she was lying about that?”
David says, “I have a sense that Ms. Lange doesn’t know how to lie at all.”
“But she is psychotic. People like that might not know the difference.”
“She is not psychotic. I haven’t had time to make a complete diagnosis but I have ruled out psychosis.”
Jackson nods. He says, “Without asking you to betray any confidentiality, and keeping in mind that she has stolen a vehicle and kidnapped a patient, and both of their lives might be in danger, could you give me a vague idea of her diagnosis? As far as you’ve gotten, that is.”
David thinks about answering. He understands what’s at stake and he wants to help but every standard of integrity in his being fights a response.
He forms his words carefully. “She has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I can tell you that because it’s a matter of public record. She was the victim of a violent crime a few years ago and participated in a police report. At that time, the medical records were submitted into evidence.”
“I see. And in your experience, how does PTSD present?”
“You’re a cop. A first responder. Surely you’re no stranger to the condition.”
“Surely I’m not. But I’m asking your professional opinion.”
“It presents in a number of ways. None of them psychotic.”
Jackson nods and flips his book closed.
“So we’re back at square one.”
“I suppose,” David says. “I wasn’t here for the first square.”
“It’s a complete mystery. To you and everyone who knew her.”
David takes a long moment to think, staring at the carpet. What had Sarah said? Nothing in particular. Nothing of any substance. All he can recall is how much she hadn’t wanted to see him that day, how much she hadn’t wanted to talk.
Then something swims up to the surface of his brain. Some comment about being able to see her way through. Some reason for living she had recently located. He looks up and he knows his face betrays him. Frankenheimer sees it first.
“What?” she asks.
He wants to shut up but he feels caught.
“She told me,” he says, “that she was starting to see a reason to be here.”
“Here?” Jackson asks. “At Oceanside?”
“No, here. In the world. I took it as a sign.”
“What kind of sign?”
“That she was feeling better. That she was moving away from the thought of suicide.”
“She was suicidal?”
David feels caught again and embarrassed.
“She talked about it. A lot of patients do. We didn’t consider her high risk in this environment,” he says.
“I see.” Jackson writes.
Frankenheimer stares hard at David. She is putting it together.
“So she had devised a plan,” she says.
“No. I didn’t take it that way.”
“How did you take it?”
“Simply,” he says. “As if we were making progress.”
Frankenheimer says
, “Dr. Sutton, don’t you know better than to take your patients’ revelations simply? Often when a suicidal patient becomes suddenly and inexplicably happy, it means they have devised a plan. Often a plan to commit suicide.”
“It wasn’t that way. It didn’t feel that way. I know how to recognize that.”
“But you didn’t recognize this,” Jackson says.
David turns his eyes squarely on the detective. “No. I am not trained to recognize when someone is planning to steal a truck and kidnap a fellow patient.”
“Easy now,” Jackson says.
David sighs, collecting what’s left of his composure. Frankenheimer crosses her arms and narrows her eyes at him like a prosecutor. “So you are telling me that nothing she said indicated that she was about to make some kind of radical move.”
“That’s what I am telling you.”
“Perhaps you were distracted. Because of what happened with Jen?”
“Dr. McCrady. No. No, my worlds don’t mix.”
Jackson issues a quiet laugh into his fist. “Teach me how to do that sometime. To keep your worlds from mixing. My wife would be interested to hear that.”
“I don’t believe we were discussing your wife,” David says.
“No,” Jackson says. “I’d better shut up about that or I’ll owe you some money.”
David doesn’t smile.
Jackson leans in again. “I suppose what I want to know, what the family of Willie Cranston will want to know, is if you think she’s violent?”
“No, I do not.”
“And you aren’t willing to elaborate?”
“No, I am not.”
“We can subpoena her records,” Jackson says. “Do you want us to go through that ordeal?”
“If you feel it’s necessary.”
Jackson offers his palms to the ceiling. “So we’ll go through that ordeal. Meantime, your patient is probably crossing state lines with her victim. That makes it a felony. The Feds? They don’t give two shits about psychological disturbance. They don’t make deals. If you want to help her, I’m your last stop.”
“I understand that.”
Jackson stares at him, considering his next move. David decides to beat him to it.
“Am I free to go now, Detective?” he asks.
“Sure thing, Doc.”
David walks to the door, trying to disguise how much he is shaking. His lack of control makes him ashamed but no one comments on it and the next thing he knows he is out of the corridor and into the parking lot and safely in his car. The uniformed cops are pacing the parking lot, smoking and laughing.