None of this Ever Really Happened

by Peter Ferry

  "I'll wear a yellow baseball cap," I said.

  I was sitting at the table staring at my lists on the wall when Lydia called. Her car had broken down halfway between Chicago and Milwaukee. "Is there any possible way—"

  "'Course. I'll come get you. I'll be glad to."

  She was sitting on her briefcase working on her laptop in front of the gas station when I pulled up. She was thinner and tanner, and now she had some highlights in her hair. She was wearing a suit and high heels. "My goodness," I said, "if I didn't know better, I'd think you were someone important." It was a joke, but it was a bad one, and I knew it as soon as I'd said it; she treated it as a joke.

  "Shut up," she said. "My God, what a day!" Her battery light had come on on the highway, and then all the dash lights, and then the car had died going full speed. She had gotten it onto the shoulder, and a nice guy had stopped and tried to give her a jump, but it had not taken, so she had had the car towed and it's the alternator, but the guy can't get to it until tomorrow morning. She told it all like that, a bit breathlessly.

  I said that I'd bring her back the next day to pick it up if she wanted me to.

  "Oh God, that would be wonderful," she said. "I don't know how else I'll get out here."

  I liked that she was nervous; I found it a little titillating. It was as if we were on a little date. I had even showered quickly and put on a clean shirt, one that she had given me.

  Suddenly I realized what I had been doing; I'd been waiting. I'd been waiting for a feeling that I had once had and somehow lost. This made me feel better because it meant that I wasn't just stringing her along, and I wasn't just afraid to leave her or hurt her. And if that morning didn't exactly give me the feeling, it at least gave me hope that it was still within me or within us. I told a dumb joke and she laughed. I told another.

  She told me that she had gotten a nice letter from Charlie that was addressed to both of us. I was a little bothered that it had come to her; I was sure I'd given him my address at Carolyn's place. "So, what did it say?" I asked.

  "I'll give it to you when we get home."

  "Can't you just tell me?"

  "Not really. You can read it yourself." She started to laugh.

  "What?" I asked.

  "There's something in there about a one-legged flamenco dancer named Paco Paco," she said. She was laughing harder.

  "What?" I was laughing now, too.

  "I loved it when you said, 'Charlie I've never known any of these people . . .' " She was laughing too hard to finish. I was, too. We couldn't stop for a couple of minutes. When we finally did, she said, "And when he said he didn't know most of them either . . ." That started us again. We were on the highway doing seventy-five and laughing so hard, I was afraid we'd crash into someone or something. There was a car running parallel to us and a woman in the passenger seat watching us with a look of horror on her face.

  I touched Lydia's arm. "Look," I said to her. That started us a third time. When we finally settled down and wiped our eyes, the woman was gone and we were approaching the toll plaza. "She probably thought we were crying," I said.

  "Oh Lord." She stopped her laughter this time. "My God."

  "Hey," I said. "Have you eaten? I'm starving."

  "I could eat something," she said.

  "Burger King okay?"

  "Sure." For a long time, we'd ordered the same thing: two chicken whoppers, no mayo, one order of onion rings, and a vanilla shake. We'd split the rings, put them on our sandwiches, and share the milkshake. That's what we did that day. Afterward she was quiet.

  "You okay?" I asked.

  "Yes."

  "Aren't you going to finish that?" I asked. Her sandwich was half eaten.

  "No. You want it?"

  "Well . . ."

  When I dropped her off, I said, "What's wrong?"

  "Nothing," she said. We both forgot about Charlie's letter.

  "About the third time I saw him, he said 'Call me Paul,'" said Jeanette Landrow. "Very California, I thought. What a red flag!" She laughed. "Oh God, I should have seen it coming, but . . ." She laughed again. "Anyway!"

  She was a pretty, dark-haired woman with a straight, thin nose, a wide mouth, and very large black eyes who had sent me a timid, tentative letter. We were sitting on either side of and at either end of a picnic table in a park by Lake Michigan. We could see joggers and bikers on the path across the way, but we were alone. There was a breeze off the water, and Jeanette was looking at the big paper cup of coffee I had brought her.

  "So, it was probably in the next session that he told me that the reason I was having problems sustaining relationships was because I had unresolved issues with my father, who had left when I was six and when he was the only man I knew, and it was some form of arrested development. Well, it all made perfect sense to me, and he said he could help me. For a while we had very productive sessions and I was very excited. I was really getting somewhere.

  "Then, about the tenth time I saw him, he said kind of out of the blue not to be alarmed if I started to feel attracted to him, that this is a common phenomenon that happens as trust develops between a patient and a therapist; and that if it were to happen to me, he wanted me to know that it was normal and just not to worry about it. In fact he said it could even be a good thing, that sometimes patients are able to explore their phobias and desires—I remember thinking it was odd that he used the word 'desires'—in the safety of the therapeutic relationship, that using the therapist as both a guide and guinea pig, they can learn to trust, they can learn healthy ways of sharing and giving and so on, and then the therapist can help them bring the treatment to a conclusion and move beyond it, apply all this stuff in their lives, and so on. The hard part about all of this is that he's very good at his job. Very, very good. He really helped me—for a while, at least. Helped me to learn how to compromise without setting up resentment. Taught me where the line is between myself and the other person, something I'd always had trouble with. Taught me how to recognize and state my needs. Taught me how to say no in a reasonable, healthy way; all of this seems so ironic now. Taught me how to negotiate. Then," she took a deep breath and laughed again. "Oh God, this is so hard."

  "Would you like to stop?" I asked.

  "No, no. I need to tell someone. It might as well be you. By that I mean a stranger. Someone who's objective. Just do me one favor. Just look that way. Just don't look at me, okay?"

  "Sure." For thirty or forty minutes, as she talked, I wrote. I didn't look up, but later in the parking lot, I did look at her and smile and thank her and say, "May I ask you one question?"

  "Yes."

  "Have you ever thought about reporting this?"

  "Yes. I know I should. I really know that I should."

  When I got home, there was a message from Rosalie on the answering machine: "Six years ago Decarre had a lumbar fusion at L4 and L5, which would greatly limit the flexibility of his lower back."

  I had found two more pieces of the puzzle, but I was still missing the one right in the middle that interlocked with half a dozen others: Was Lisa Decarre's patient? I had a plan for finding out, but it was tricky and iffy, and I'd get only one shot at it. If it didn't work, I might never find out, and if I never found out, none of this was going anywhere. Again I got up early and took the dogs to the beach. Again I wrote the script in my head and then on paper. Again I opened a Diet Dr Pepper and used the prepaid cell phone.

  "Customer service."

  "I'm wondering if you can help me with a discrepancy between our records and a doctor's records," I said.

  "I'll do my best. Can you give me an account number?"

  "Will a Social Security number do?" I gave her Lisa's and identified myself as Lisa's father.

  "I'm sorry, but all account information and medical records are confidential. Now if you have Lisa Kim call us, we'll be happy to help her."

  "I know this is going to make you feel terrible, but Lisa is deceased. She was killed in a car accident."

/>   "Oh gosh, I see it now. I'm so sorry . . ."

  We each apologized a couple of times. I talked about tying up loose ends. I said Lisa had been billed for a doctor's appointment we were certain she hadn't kept, and we wanted to know if the insurance company had been billed, too, and paid its portion.

  The woman on the phone said that she would help me, but it was a violation of law and policy; she could lose her job. "All I am allowed to say to any unauthorized inquiry is, 'I have no information on that individual.' That's all I can say."

  "Are you allowed to not say, 'I have no information on that individual'?"

  "What do you mean?" she asked.

  "Can you just say nothing?" I asked.

  "Well . . ."

  "I mean, suppose I ask the question, and suppose you do have information on the patient; can you remain silent?"

  "Well, I don't know. I suppose . . ."

  "If I give you a date of an office visit, and you don't have any information, then you answer that you have no information, right?"

  "Right."

  "What if I give you a date, and you do have information; can you say nothing?"

  She was confused. She stalled. She asked if I could verify that I was Lisa's father, and asked me Lisa's street address, phone number, and mother's maiden name. I dutifully read these from the sheet of newsprint labeled "Lisa's Vital Statistics."

  She paused. "Okay, I'll try it."

  "Thank you very much. I really appreciate this. Can you tell me if Lisa saw Dr. Albert Decarre on Tuesday, December 4?" I asked.

  "I have no information on that individual," she said.

  "How about on November 27?"

  "I have no information . . . listen, this sounds like you're fishing. I can't—"

  "I know, I know. Just one more, I promise. Just one more. How about on Tuesday, November 20?"

  I did not hear an answer. "Are you still there?"

  "Still here," she said.

  "Okay, then. Thank you very much," I said.

  "You're welcome."

  I hung up the phone and whooped. I drained the Dr Pepper. The son of a bitch had been treating her. He had seen her on November 24, just before Thanksgiving and just about when she'd written the letter. What had happened to prevent her from sending it may have happened in that session.

  I looked at the clock. An hour until I was to pick up Lydia. I went into the bathroom and ran the shower. The phone rang and it was Lydia. She said she had another ride.

  "But you said you had no way—"

  "Pete."

  "Yes."

  There was a pause. Then she said carefully, "That was too hard for me yesterday. I can't do that anymore. It was that dumb sandwich. I gotta go."

  "Wait, Lydia, wait a minute."

  "Can't. They're here for me."

  "What about Charlie's letter?" But the phone was dead. I went back to the bathroom and turned off the shower. I sat on the deck. I could remember living with Lydia, but I could not imagine doing it again. It all seemed past tense. I had a strange sense of something like emotional gravity weighing at me, pulling me down. I went back in the living room to the "things to do" list. I added this: Look for an apartment.

  Then I lay down on the floor.

  11

  . . .

  BACK TO SCHOOL

  THE LAST TIME I'd seen Steve Lotts had been at Wendy and Carolyn's good-bye party, and he'd walked away in what looked a lot like disgust. Despite Carolyn's suggestion, I had no intention of calling him. Strangely, he called me instead. Of course, it wasn't strange at all. I found out later that Carolyn had talked to him right after she had talked to me and told him that I might be on to something after all, and that I needed some advice.

  Steve suggested we eat lunch at his favorite place, the North Pond Café in Lincoln Park. He was waiting for me over a glass of pinot grigio since it was his first day off in a while. I had one, too, since it was nearly my last day off. A front had come down the lake and cleaned the city out; it was clear and almost cool for the first time in weeks, cool enough that you knew for the first time that summer would not last forever. As always, Steve had chosen the perfect table. We were looking out across the pond and the trees to the skyline.

  "You gotta try this thing, this asparagus-mushroom-cream tart. Unbelievable," he said. He didn't mention the words we had exchanged at the ball game or at the dinner, and he didn't mention Lydia. I filled him in on Albert Decarre.

  "He lied to her. He lied to his own wife," I said.

  "Oh, like what else is new. I mean, how many guys don't lie to their wives? Exactly why I'm not married."

  "Why would he tell her it was the hospital calling?"

  "So he wouldn't have to say he was being exposed or threatened or blackmailed or slandered," he said. "So he wouldn't ruin her dinner party? I don't know, or maybe he was boinking this Korean chick, and he had something to hide. Doesn't mean he killed her, Pete."

  "There's an eyewitness. I'm an eyewitness. I saw him get out of the goddamn car with my own two eyes."

  Steve said a bad drunken lawyer would take me apart on the stand over that.

  "You don't think I'd make a credible witness?" I asked.

  "It's not that. It's all the other stuff. It's dark. It's raining. You don't remember this guy for seven months, and then only under hypnosis. Yikes. Hypnosis makes juries nervous. Hocus-pocus. Besides, there's your personal stake in all of this. I'm sorry, Pete, but—"

  "I mean it almost sounds as if you think I'm making all of this up," I said.

  "Of course not. I believe the guy was there. I believe he was involved in the girl's death. He could have at least prevented it, and it's possible he caused it. He's mixed up in it somehow, but that's just my belief. Believing and proving are two different things, and frankly you just don't have any evidence at all."

  "So how do I get evidence?"

  "I'm not sure you do." He shrugged. "It's an imperfect science. Fifty percent of major crimes are never solved. Fifty percent of criminals get away with it, and believe me a lot of criminals are really dumb. God knows what percent of the smart ones get away with it, and this doctor of yours is smart."

  "But he's guilty."

  "So's O. J. You know it, and I know it, but . . ." He shrugged his shoulders. "Like I said, its an imperfect science."

  "So that's that?" I asked. "There's nothing more to do?"

  "Be patient. Most criminals want attention. When he feels safe enough or confident enough, he may screw up and tell someone or make some other mistake. If you want to know the truth, I think he'll do it again, and when you have two crimes to compare, you see patterns and—"

  "You really think he'll kill again?"

  "Not kill, unless he has to. I don't see him as a murderer so much as a sex criminal. People can kill once out of passion, for instance, or maybe out of fear or desperation and never do it again; but sex criminals, those guys are almost always serial criminals. It's a compulsion. My guess is that he's done it before, and that he'll do it again."

  "In the meantime, what do I do?" I asked. "Wait around for someone else to be hurt or killed?"

  "It sucks, I know, but you've done all you can do."

  I wasn't so sure.

  For the first time in ten weeks, I put on long pants and went to work. There's always a certain apprehension about the opening of school, if only because I've been gone for so long; this was especially true in the year of Lisa Kim. I sat through two days of meetings, refusing to pay attention. I didn't want to be there. In the past, coming back had always been a transition because summer is such a pleasant distraction. Now work seemed the distraction. I felt that I should be sitting at my desk in front of my computer and lists, planning my next move. The first week of class, I took Friday off and went to Indiana to buy a gun in what was no doubt an attempt to hold off the dull, numbing sleep of winter and to prolong the electric uncertainty of that summer.

  I probably could have driven there, done my business, and driven h
ome in one day, or even stopped coming or going to the cottage, but I didn't want to. I wanted to feel comfortable there, to know my way around, to learn some street names, to walk on the sidewalks, turn the corners, so I checked into an old motel on the Red Arrow Highway Thursday evening, left Art and Cooper there with McDonald's Happy Meals, and took myself out to dinner. I didn't even hurry the next day. I took the dogs to the beach and ate a real breakfast in a real diner before I started to poke around.

  I found the pawnshop first, and in it I found the gun. Then I found the church, the church custodian, and the laundromat. The church was locked, but the church custodian said there was a noon mass on Saturday and open worship until evening mass. "Then I could come in and sit quietly and pray between services?" I asked.

  "That's right."

  In the afternoon I used my prepaid cell phone to call the pawnshop and price the gun I had found that morning including a box of ammunition and tax. Then I went to a supermarket and purchased a cashier's check in that exact amount, using cash.

  Then I found a nice pub in New Buffalo with Pilsner Urquell on tap, drank a couple pints watching the end of the Cubs game and the news, bought myself dinner again, and went back to read in bed.

  The next morning, I found Alice. I also found Don, Arnelle, Cindy, and Mr. Hayes, but from the start I was pretty sure it would be Alice. Her flyer on the supermarket bulletin board was neatly handprinted and read, "House and Yard Work. Dependable Quality Cheap. No job too big. I do windows." Not one of the fringe of little tabs at the bottom had been taken. That was good. Her enterprise was new, and she was still hungry, plus she had a sense of humor. Mr. Hayes sounded old, and I liked Don, who also did yard work, but I thought I really wanted a woman; I thought I might have an emotional as well as a physical advantage if I chose a woman. Arnelle sounded okay, but Alice was my first choice, so I held my breath when I called her at two from my car.

  "'Lo."

  "Is this Alice?" I asked.

  "Yes."

  "Alice, my name is Tom. I saw your flyer in Kroger's, and I'm calling you about some work."

  "You come to the right place then."