Self-Defense

by Jonathan Kellerman

  She laughed, kissed me harder, then pushed me away and went off to bathe.

  Spike had tolerated the display of affection, but now he looked put-upon. A visit to the water bowl perked him up. I fed him his favorite dinner of kibble and meat loaf, then took him for a waddle on the beach and watched him ingest silica. The tide was low, so he stayed mostly on track, pausing from time to time to lift his leg at the pilings of other houses. Neutered, but the spirit remained.

  Robin spent some time soaking and reading and I polished a report to a family court judge, a custody case where a happy ending was too much to hope for. I just hoped my recommendations could save three kids from some of the pain.

  At 7:30, I checked in with my service; then we left Spike with a Milk-Bone and a rap-music fest on MTV and took my old ’79 Seville past Pepperdine University and the Malibu pier to Beauvilla.

  It’s a French place on the land side, ancient by L.A. restaurant standards, which means post-Reagan. Monterey colonial architecture, a bit of water view past a public parking lot, beautifully cooked ProvenÇal cuisine, genuinely friendly service, and a slouching, smoking pianist who used to play soap-opera sound tracks and manages to turn a Steinway grand into a Hammond organ.

  We had a quiet dinner and listened to a weird musical medley: “Begin the Beguine,” something from Shostakovich, a slew of Carpenters’ songs, the sound track from Oklahoma! As we were having coffee, the maÎtre d’ came over and said, “Dr. Delaware? You have a call, sir.”

  I picked up the phone behind the bar.

  “Hi, Dr. Delaware, this is Sarah from your service. I don’t know if I did the right thing, but you got a call a few minutes ago from a patient named Lucy Lowell. She said it wasn’t an emergency, but she sounded pretty upset. Like she was trying not to cry.”

  “Did she leave a message?”

  “No. I told her you were out of the office but I could reach you if it was an emergency. She said it wasn’t important; she’d call you tomorrow. I wouldn’t have bothered you, but she seemed really nervous. When I deal with the psych patients I like to be careful.”

  “I appreciate it, Sarah. Did she leave a number?”

  She read off an 818 exchange that I recognized as Lucy’s home number, in Woodland Hills.

  Peter’s sleepy voice answered my call. “We’re unable to come to the phone right now, so leave a message.”

  As I began to speak, Lucy broke in: “I told them there was no reason to bother you, Dr. Delaware. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s no bother. What can I do for you?”

  “Really, it’s okay.”

  “Long as I’m on the phone, you might as well tell me what’s up.”

  “Nothing, it’s just the dream—the one I was having when I first started seeing you. It went away right after the first session, and I thought it was gone for good. But tonight it came back—very vivid.”

  “One dream?” I said. “A recurrent one.”

  “Yes. The other thing is I must have sleepwalked, too. Because I dozed off on the couch watching TV, the way I usually do, and woke up on the kitchen floor.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “No, no, I’m fine, I don’t want to make a bigger deal out of it than it is—it was just a little weird, finding myself that way.”

  “Is the dream about Shwandt?”

  “No, that’s the thing; it’s got nothing to do with him. That’s why I didn’t want to get into it. And then, when it went away, I figured . . .”

  I looked over at Robin, alone at the table, powdering her nose. “Would you like to tell me about it?”

  “Um, this is going to sound terribly rude, but I’d really rather not get into it over the phone.”

  “Is someone there with you?”

  “No, why?”

  “Just wondering if it was an awkward time.”

  “No. No, I’m alone.”

  “Peter doesn’t live with you?”

  “Peter? Oh, the machine.” Soft laugh. “No, he’s got his own place. He made the tape for me—for safety. So people wouldn’t know I was a woman living by myself.”

  “Because of the trial?”

  “No, before. He tries to look out for me—really, Dr. Delaware, I’m okay. I’m sorry they called you. We can talk about it next session.”

  “Next session isn’t for a week. Would you like to come in sooner?”

  “Sooner. . . . Okay, thanks.”

  “How about tomorrow morning?”

  “Could I impose on you to meet early again? If it’s a problem, just tell me, but work’s still piling up and the drive from the Valley—”

  “Same time. I’m an early riser.”

  “Thank you very much, Dr. Delaware. Good night.”

  I returned to Robin as she was putting away her compact.

  “Emergency?”

  “No.”

  “You’re free?”

  “Nah, but I’m cheap.”

  “Good,” she said, touching my cheek. “I was thinking of a walk on the sand and who-knows-what later.”

  “I don’t know, you’re a little clean for my taste.”

  “We’ll roll in mud, first.”

  When we got back, MTV was broadcasting the Headbangers Ball and Spike had lost interest. We changed into sweats and took him with us down to the beach.

  The sand was frosty, the breakers rising, with just enough space for a stroll up to the tide pools and back. Lights from some of the other houses cast gray stripes across the dunes; the rest was black.

  “Pretty cinematic,” said Robin. “I feel like I’m in one of those dreadful Movies of the Week.”

  “Me, too. Let’s talk earnestly about our relationship.”

  “I’d rather talk about what I’m going to do to you when we get back.”

  She leaned in and did.

  I laughed.

  “What, it’s funny?” she said.

  “No, it’s great.”

  The next morning, she was late leaving and Lucy met her coming through the gate.

  “Your wife’s really gorgeous,” she told me, when we were alone. “And your dog is adorable—what is he, a pug?”

  “French Bulldog.”

  “Like a miniature bulldog?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I’ve never seen one before.”

  “They’re pretty rare.”

  “Adorable.” She turned toward the water and smiled.

  I waited for a few moments to pass, then said, “Do you want to talk about the dream?”

  “Guess I’d better.”

  “It’s not an assignment, Lucy.”

  She chuckled and shook her head.

  “What is it?” I said.

  “This is a pretty good deal, Dr. Delaware. You cut your fee in half for me, and I still get to call the shots. Did you know there are quack hotlines on TV—dial-a-psychic-pal—that cost more than this?”

  “Sure, but I don’t claim to tell the future.”

  “Only the past, right?”

  “If I’m lucky.”

  She turned serious. “Well, maybe the dream is coming from my past, because it has nothing to do with what’s going on with me now. And in it I’m a little kid.”

  “How little?”

  “Three or four, I guess.”

  Her fingers moved nervously.

  I waited.

  “Okay,” she said. “Better start from the beginning: I’m somewhere out in the woods—in a cabin. Your basic log cabin.”

  More fidgeting.

  “Is the cabin somewhere you’ve been before?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  She shrugged and put her hands in her lap.

  “A log cabin,” I said.

  “Yes. . . . It must be at night, because it’s dark inside. Then all of a sudden I’m outside . . . walking. And it’s even darker. I can hear people. Shouting—or maybe they’re laughing. It’s hard to tell.”

  Closing her eyes, she tucked her legs under her. Her head began to sway;
then she was still.

  “People shouting or laughing,” I said.

  She kept her eyes closed. “Yes . . . and lights. Like fireflies—like stars on the ground—but in colors. And then . . .”

  She bit her lip. Her eyelids were clenched.

  “Men,” she said.

  Quickening her breath.

  She dropped her head, as if discouraged.

  “Men you know, Lucy?”

  Nod.

  “Who?”

  No answer.

  Several quick, shallow breaths.

  Her shoulders bunched.

  “Who are they, Lucy?” I said softly.

  She winced.

  More silence.

  Then: “My father . . . and others, and . . .”

  “And who?”

  Almost inaudibly: “A girl.”

  “A little girl like you?”

  Headshake. “No, a woman. He’s carrying her—over his shoulder.”

  Eyes moving beneath the lids. Experiencing the dream?

  “Your father’s carrying the woman?”

  “No . . . one of the others.”

  “Do you recognize him?”

  “No,” she said, tensing, as if challenged. “All I can see is their backs.” She began talking rapidly. “She’s over one of their shoulders and he’s carrying her—like a sack of potatoes—with her hair hanging down.”

  She opened her eyes suddenly, looking disoriented.

  “This is weird. It’s almost as if I’m . . . back in it.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “Just relax and experience what you need to.”

  Her eyes closed again. Her chest heaved.

  “What do you see now?”

  “Dark,” she said. “Hard to see. But . . . the moon. . . . There’s a big moon . . . and . . .”

  “What, Lucy?”

  “They’re still carrying her.”

  “Where?”

  “Don’t know. . . .” She grimaced. Her forehead was moist.

  “I’m following them.”

  “Do they know that?”

  “No. I’m behind them. . . . The trees are so big . . . they keep going and going . . . lots of trees, everywhere—a forest. Huge trees . . . branches hanging down . . . more trees . . . lacy . . . pretty . . .” Deep inhalation. “They’re stopping . . . putting her on the ground.”

  Her lips were white.

  “Then what, Lucy?”

  “They start talking, looking around. I’m scared they’ve seen me. But then they turn their backs on me and start moving—I can’t see them anymore, too dark . . . lost . . . then the sound—rubbing or grinding. More like grinding. Over and over.”

  She opened her eyes. Sweat had trickled to her nose. I gave her a tissue.

  She managed a weak smile. “That’s basically it, the same scene over and over.”

  “How many times have you had the dream?”

  “Quite a few—maybe thirty or forty times. I never counted.”

  “Every night?”

  “Sometimes. Sometimes it’s just two or three times a week.”

  “Over how long a period?”

  “Since the middle of the trial—so what’s that, four, five months? But like I said, after I started seeing you, it stopped till last night, so I figured it was just tension.”

  “Does the girl in the dream look like any of Shwandt’s victims?”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t—maybe this is wrong, but I get the feeling it has nothing to do directly with him. I can’t tell you why, it’s just something I feel.”

  “Any idea what it does have to do with?”

  “No. I’m probably not making much sense.”

  “You never had the dream before the trial?”

  “Never.”

  “Did anything happen in the middle of the trial to make you especially tense?”

  “Well,” she said, “actually, it started right after Milo Sturgis testified. About Carrie. What she went through.”

  She stared at me.

  “So maybe I’m wrong. Maybe hearing about Carrie evoked something in me—I identified with her and became a little girl myself. Do you think that’s possible?”

  I nodded.

  Her eyes drifted out toward the ocean. “The thing is, the dream feels familiar. Like dÉjÀ vu. But also new and strange. And now, the sleepwalking—I guess I’m worried about losing control.”

  “Have you ever sleepwalked before?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Did you wet the bed as a child?”

  She blushed. “What does that have to do with it?”

  “Sometimes sleepwalking and bedwetting are related biologically. Some people have a genetic tendency for both.”

  “Oh. . . . Well, yes, I did do that. A little, when I was very young.”

  She shifted in her chair.

  “Do the dreams wake you up?” I said.

  “I wake up thinking about them.”

  “Any particular time of night?”

  “Early in the morning, but it’s still dark.”

  “How do you feel physically when you wake up?”

  “A little sick—sweating and clammy, my heart’s pounding. Sometimes my stomach starts to hurt. Like an ulcer.” Poking her finger just below her sternum.

  “Have you had an ulcer?”

  “Just a small one, for a few weeks—the summer before I started college. The dreams make me feel the same sort of way, but not as bad. Usually the pain goes away if I just lie there and try to relax. If it doesn’t, I take an antacid.”

  “Do you tend to get stomachaches?”

  “Once in a while, but nothing serious. I’m healthy as a horse.”

  Another glance at the water.

  “The grinding sound,” she said. “Do you have any theories about that?”

  “Does it mean anything to you?”

  Long pause. “Something . . . sexual. I guess. The rhythm?”

  “You think the men may be having sex with her?”

  “Maybe—but what’s the difference? It’s just a dream. Maybe we should forget the whole thing.”

  “Recurrent unpleasant dreams usually mean something’s on your mind, Lucy. I think you’re wise to deal with it.”

  “What could be on my mind?”

  “That’s what we’re here to find out.”

  “Yes.” She smiled. “Guess so.”

  “Is there anything else you want to tell me about the dream?”

  She thought. “Sometimes it changes focus—right in the middle.”

  “The picture gets clearer? Or fuzzier?”

  “Both. The focus goes back and forth. As if someone inside my brain is adjusting a lens—some kind of homunculus—an incubus. Do you know what that is?”

  “An evil spirit that visits sleeping women.” And rapes them.

  “An evil spirit,” she repeated. “Now I’m lapsing into mythology. This is starting to feel a little silly.”

  “Does the girl in the dream resemble anyone you know?”

  “Her back’s to me. I can’t see her face.”

  “Can you describe her at all?”

  She closed her eyes and, once again, her head swayed. “Let’s see . . . she’s wearing a short white dress—very short. It rides up her legs . . . long legs. Trim thighs, like from aerobics . . . and long dark hair. Hanging down in a sheet.”

  “How old would you say she is?”

  “Um . . . she has a young body.” Opening her eyes. “What’s weird is that she never moves, even when the man carrying her jostles her. Like someone . . . with no control. That’s all I remember.”

  “Nothing about the men?”

  “Nothing.” Eyeing her purse.

  “But one of them is definitely your father.”

  Her hands flew together and laced tightly. “Yes.”

  “You see his face.”

  “For a second he turns and I see him.”

  She’d gone pale and her face was sweaty again.r />
  I said, “What’s bothering you right now, Lucy?”

  “Talking about it . . . when I talk, I start to feel—to feel it. As if I’m dropping back into it.”

  “Loss of control.”

  “Yes. The dream’s scary. I don’t want to be there.”

  “What’s the scary part?”

  “That they’re going to find me. I’m not supposed to be there.”

  “Where are you supposed to be?”

  “Back inside.”

  “In the log cabin.”

  Nod.

  “Did someone tell you to stay inside?”

  “I don’t know. I just know I’m not supposed to be there.”

  She rubbed her face, not unlike the way Milo does when he’s nervous or distracted. It raised blemishlike patches on her skin.

  “So what does it mean?” she said.

  “I don’t know yet. We need to find out more about you.”

  She brought her legs out from under her. Her fingers remained laced, the knuckles ice-white. “I’m probably making much too big a deal out of this. Why should I whine about a stupid dream? I’ve got my health, a good job—there are people out there, homeless, getting shot on the street, dying of AIDS.”

  “Just because others have it worse doesn’t mean you have to suffer in silence.”

  “Others have it a lot worse. I’ve had it good, Dr. Delaware, believe me.”

  “Why don’t you tell me about it.”

  “About what?”

  “Your background, your family.”

  “My background,” she said absently. “You asked me about that the first time I came in, but I avoided it, didn’t I? And you didn’t push. I thought that was very gentlemanly. Then I thought, Maybe he’s just backing off as a strategy; he probably has other ways of getting into my head. Pretty paranoid, huh? But being in therapy was unnerving. I’d never done it before.”

  I nodded.

  She smiled. “Guess I’m waffling, right now. Okay. My background: I was born in New York City twenty-five years ago, on April 14. Lenox Hill Hospital, to be precise. I grew up in New York and Connecticut, went to fine upstanding girls’ schools, and graduated from Belding College three years ago—it’s a small women’s college just outside of Boston. I got my degree in history but couldn’t do much with that, so I took a job as a bookkeeper at Belding, keeping the accounts straight for the Faculty Club and the Student Union. Last thing I thought I’d be doing, never had a head for math. But it turned out I liked it. The orderliness. Then I spotted a job card from Bowlby and Sheldon on the campus employment bulletin board and went for an interview. They’re a national firm, had no opening except in L.A. On a whim, I applied and got it. And came West, young woman. That’s it. Not very illuminating, is it?”