Eyes of a Child

by Richard North Patterson

  Gates folded her hands again. ‘That was not,’ she said finally, ‘the manner in which Mr Arias approached the question. He seemed interested in studying Elena for clues and determining how likely it was that she would become able to talk about whatever had happened. If anything had.’

  Caroline put both hands on her hips. ‘But did you consider the possibility?’

  Gates frowned. ‘Whatever I learned through Mr Arias. In that context, I heard nothing which suggests the possibility you mention. In fact, his sexual interests seemed exclusively adult.’

  ‘Even though Mr Arias had been abused as a child?’

  ‘Physically not sexually. They’re quite different. And I had no reason at all to suspect that Mr Arias would beat his own daughter. Which is much more clearly indicated by his history than is sexual abuse.’

  Caroline studied her. ‘Speaking of history, did you also discuss Mr Arias’s relationship with his mother?’

  ‘To some extent.’

  ‘And what did you learn?’

  ‘According to Mr Arias, his mother adored him. He mentioned that several times, with something of an air of pride.’

  ‘What else did he say about Sonia Arias?’

  ‘Very little, although he seemed to feel he could count on her.’ She paused, as if considering whether to say something more. ‘In general, Mr Arias seemed more comfortable with women than men – he believed that women accepted him more readily. It’s not unusual in this kind of family, where the father is angry or remote and the mother somewhat doting.’

  ‘Did you make any other assessment about Mr Arias’s relationship with his mother?’

  Gates’s eyes flickered, and then she looked down momentarily. ‘I suppose I should tell you, Ms Masters, that Mrs Arias once called me.’

  Caroline felt surprise. ‘What did she say?’

  ‘Her primary concern was to find out how Richie talked about her and how I saw their relationship.’

  ‘How did you respond?’

  ‘I asked if Richie knew she was calling. When she said no, I explained as gently as I could that I communicate with my patients in confidence.’ Pausing, Gates added pointedly. ‘It tends to promote trust in our profession.’

  Caroline smiled. ‘What was Mrs Arias’s response?’

  ‘She wanted to know if Richie had told me that she was paying for his appointments.’

  ‘Had he?’

  ‘No, actually. It wasn’t a great deal of money.’ Gates paused. ‘I got off as quickly as I could. I didn’t want to be in the middle of something.’

  ‘The middle of what, exactly?’

  Gates leaned back. ‘My impression, to use the current cliché, was that Sonia Arias was somewhat lacking in boundaries. She didn’t see Ricardo as a separate person: he was part of her own ego, her need for love and approval – which, perhaps, Mr Arias had learned to play on.’

  ‘And how might that have affected him?’

  Gates gave Caroline a measured look. ‘Without specific reference to Mr Arias, the effect can be an inflated self-concept and the sense that people will and should gratify wishes which persists into adulthood.’

  ‘Your Honor,’ Salinas interjected. ‘Is there some point to all of this? Or is Ms Masters simply putting on a seminar in early childhood development?’

  Without turning, Caroline addressed Lerner. ‘Whether suicide or murder, the psychology and character of Ricardo Arias are very much at issue here. If the court will indulge me, I’ll try to stick to the pertinent.’

  Judge Lerner nodded. ‘Please do so.’

  Facing Gates, Caroline asked, ‘You mentioned that your charges to Mr Arias did not involve a great deal of money. I understood your fee to be one hundred dollars per hour.’

  ‘Usually, it is. But after a couple of sessions, Mr Arias told me that his finances did not permit that kind of charge.’ Gates paused a moment. ‘I thought about it and decided that I should continue seeing him. As I do for certain patients, I reduced his fee to twenty dollars an hour.’

  ‘He didn’t tell you that his mother was sending him two hundred dollars per week to cover your fees?’

  For what seemed a long while, Gates simply studied Caroline; at the corner of her mouth, Caroline thought she detected the faintest shadow of a smile. ‘No,’ Gates answered. ‘He didn’t.’

  ‘Does that come as a surprise to you?’

  Caroline saw no smile now. ‘No,’ Gates answered tersely.

  The obvious next question, Caroline knew, was ‘Why not?’ Instinctively, Caroline decided to avoid it.

  ‘You perform family evaluations, do you not? Of the kind sought by Ms Peralta?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was your experience a reason that Mr Arias sought you out?’

  Gates nodded. ‘That’s what he told me. He said I could help advise him about the evaluation process.’

  ‘Did Mr Arias say what kind of advice he wanted?’

  Gates gave Caroline a steady gaze. ‘“How to make it come out right,” I believe was how he put it.’

  Once more, Salinas was on his feet. ‘Objection. Again, Mr Arias’s specific goals in custody proceedings are irrelevant to the question of suicide.’

  This time, Caroline spun on him. ‘Are they? According to you, they gave him every reason to live.’ She turned to Lerner. ‘The defense believes this relevant to Mr Arias’s state of mind at the time of his death, Your Honor. I’d like to develop that.’

  ‘See if you can, then.’ Lerner turned to Salinas. ‘Counselor, you opened this particular can of worms. Please show Ms Masters a little patience.’

  Caroline faced Gates again. ‘Mr Arias first saw you in July, correct?’

  ‘Early July. Yes.’

  ‘In other words, before anyone raised the possibility that Elena had been sexually abused.’

  ‘As far as I know, yes. I don’t believe that Mr Arias mentioned it until after Elena returned to school.’

  ‘Did Mr Arias explain what he meant by making things come out right?’

  Gates folded her hands. ‘What he asked for, Ms Masters, was a list of positive attributes he should present as a father. As well as what kind of negative factors might cause Ms Peralta to lose permanent custody.’

  ‘Did you describe them to Mr Arias?’

  ‘Yes. The main ones, in any event.’

  ‘And what are they?’

  Gates, Caroline realized, seemed never to blink. ‘Substance abuse. Child neglect. Violence. And, of course, sexual abuse.’

  Salinas started to rise, then stopped himself. ‘Did Mr Arias say anything in response?’ Caroline asked.

  ‘I don’t recall.’ A pause. ‘What I do recall is that he wrote down the factors I listed on a piece of paper.’

  The irony, Caroline thought, lay in the words themselves: Gates’s tone seemed never to change. ‘Did you also discuss the evaluation process?’ Caroline asked.

  ‘In detail. Particularly after Ms Peralta began requesting an evaluation in her mediation sessions. Mr Arias was quite concerned to understand all the ins and outs. Including psychological testing.’

  ‘Could you describe the nature of the testing?’

  Gates gave a short nod. ‘The principal test is the Princeton Personality Indicator, or PPI. The test subjects answer over five hundred true-false questions designed to reveal specific personality factors in great detail. They’re also set up to detect when a person is trying to beat the test – that is, to appear to be someone he or she is not. The PPI is particularly helpful in diagnosing personality disorders.’

  ‘Did Mr Arias ask for advice with respect to the PPI?’

  ‘Yes.’ Gates’s tone was still level. ‘He wanted to know how to give the right answers.’

  ‘What did you tell him.’

  ‘That there was no way to help him.’

  Caroline cocked her head. ‘Do you know why he was so concerned?’

  Gates, Caroline realized, was sitting quite still. ‘What Mr Arias said was that
he wanted an edge. But he also mentioned that his wife had told him he wasn’t normal. It seemed to upset him.’

  ‘Do you know why?’

  ‘No.’ Gates paused, as if considering something. ‘I do know that he was quite angry with her.’

  Caroline moved closer, turning so she could glance at the jury. ‘How did Mr Arias evince this anger?’

  Gates tented her fingers. ‘What I particularly remember was a statement he made early on. That he wanted Ms Peralta to suffer.’

  In the jury box, Luisa Marin looked troubled. Caroline raised her eyebrows. ‘Mr Arias seems to have been quite comfortable telling you things.’

  ‘He was,’ Gates said in a dry voice. ‘After he was assured that our talks were confidential, he seemed to enjoy sharing the workings of his own mind. Including how he intended to “break Terri down,” as he put it.’

  There was something here, Caroline thought, that she did not quite understand. With professional dispassion, Gates was slowly painting a picture of Ricardo Arias, but how she saw her own role as his therapist was unclear. ‘Did he discuss Ms Peralta’s personality at any length.’

  ‘Certain aspects of it. He seemed chiefly interested in those characteristics that he believed he could exploit. For example, Ms Peralta’s father was an abusive alcoholic, and Ms Arias asked how a child of such a family might react to the pressure of a custody suit. His own observation was that Ms. Peralta was afraid of conflict when it got too close to home, and that he had doubted she could stick out a custody fight.’

  ‘Had she surprised him?’

  ‘To a point.’ For the first time, Gates glanced at Paget. ‘He tended to blame that on Mr Paget – he thought that Mr Paget had propped up Ms Peralta, while Carlo, Mr Paget’s son, was trying to displace him with Elena.’

  A certain calm came over Caroline now, the sense that she was about to enter another dimension, make all the connections at last. ‘Do you recall when,’ Caroline asked, ‘Mr Arias first mentioned the possibly of sexual abuse?’

  ‘I believe there was a playground incident, something about Elena exposing herself – Elena’s teacher had called him. That was when Mr Arias started asking me about symptoms and began reading on the subject.’

  ‘Did he consider it an opportunity to put pressure on Ms Peralta?’

  ‘Clearly. And, perhaps, to get back at Mr Paget and Carlo for their sins against him, real or perceived. One aspect of Mr Arias’s personality was to believe that if you’d “done” something to him, he was free to retaliate by doing something to you, whatever it might be.’ Here Gates paused. ‘But – and I want to emphasize this – Mr Arias didn’t invent this concern: that originated with Elena’s teacher. Nor could he summon Elena’s symptoms out of nowhere. So I am not saying that nothing happened to this little girl.’

  ‘But do you have any insight on why Mr Arias later made specific charges about Carlo Paget?’

  Gates looked pensive. ‘Mr Arias told me he’d been thinking about any new people Elena had been spending time with. The only people he could come up with were Mr Paget and his son, and sometimes the boy and Elena were alone. Then, according to Mr Arias, Elena said something disturbing about Carlo Paget giving her a bath, and it all came together.’

  ‘Do you have any opinion about the validity of Richie’s charges?’

  ‘None. But I didn’t sense that this bath was Mr Alias’s invention, either. Even if, as you suggest, some part of Mr Arias may have wanted Carlo to be a child abuser.’

  ‘Did you give Mr Arias any advice?’

  ‘Yes. To be very careful of Elena. I thought she might need help, and I didn’t want her lost in all of this.’ She paused. ‘I also suggested that the family court mediator, Alec Keene, would help find the best evaluator for Elena.’

  For the first time, Caroline had a glimmer of understanding: Gates would offer no excuse or explanation, but she saw her role differently than Ricardo Arias had perceived it. ‘Did Mr Arias agree?’

  ‘He agreed that Elena should see someone. But he was still worried about how he would come out in this evaluation Ms Peralta proposed. Particularly the psychological testing.’

  ‘How did you respond to that?’

  Gates folded her hands. ‘What I told him,’ she said quietly, ‘was that I’d test him myself. If he wanted to find out.’

  Oh my God, Caroline thought. With equal quiet, she asked, ‘And did he take you up on that?’

  ‘No.’ Gates paused. ‘Even after I assured him that no one but me would ever know the results.’

  Joseph Duarte, Caroline saw, was very still. ‘Had you,’ Caroline asked slowly, ‘formed an opinion as to what the tests would show?’

  Gates leaned back, pulling herself more tightly together: it seemed clear to Caroline that what she was about to do violated her deepest professional beliefs. ‘My sessions with Mr Arias,’ she said at length, ‘indicated intense self-absorption; a profound lack of empathy for others; a disrespect for social norms and accepted rules of behavior; a tendency to project his own faults on other people; a lack of interest in anyone’s else’s feelings or beliefs; a high degree of dishonesty and manipulation in interpersonal dealings; a distrust of other people’s motives; and, paradoxically, a tendency to see others strictly in terms of his own needs.’

  Gates paused, frowning, as if deciding whether to explain the man himself. ‘This kind of personality,’ she said at length, ‘can be very charming. Indeed, charm helps such a person get what he wants, and as long as people give it to him, he can be quite pleasant, even cheerful. But if someone opposes him, the result can be extreme anger and a series of actions – often outside accepted behavior – to strike back at the offending party. So it was with Mr Arias.’

  Caroline gazed at her a moment. ‘That’s an impressive cluster of symptoms, Dr Gates. Does it happen to have a name?’

  ‘Sociopath.’ Gates smiled with one corner of her mouth. ‘I could have told you that much without ever giving a test.’

  ‘And did you offer this analysis to Mr Arias?’

  Gates’s smile vanished. ‘What I told him,’ she said softly, ‘is that psychological testing might damage his case.’

  Caroline raised an eyebrow. ‘And how did Mr Arias react?’

  ‘Predictably, on one level. He said that tests like that were bullshit, quote unquote, and became quite angry with me.’ Gates sounded somewhat chastened. ‘In truth, I should have predicted his more considered reaction. Instead of trying to compose his differences with Ms Peralta, he redoubled his efforts to keep the evaluation from ever happening.’

  ‘How did he do that, if you know?’

  Gates frowned. ‘By putting his charges about Elena in a legal pleading and filing it in court.’ She paused again. ‘At one of our sessions, he described at great length how he had served the papers on Ms Peralta by waiting inside her apartment at night. He also thought the charges against Carlo Paget might drive her and Mr Paget apart.’ She looked at Paget, finishing directly. ‘If Ms Peralta was alone again, he seemed confident that he could break her down.’

  Caroline stopped for a moment, caught between fascination and the horrified realization that she had just helped Salinas develop Paget’s motive for murder. ‘Did you respond to any of this?’

  ‘Yes. I implored him not to do it, for Elena’s sake, and to let the evaluation take its course.’ Gates shook her head. ‘He absolutely refused, of course; his rationale was that Ms Peralta had given him no choice. Also predictable, I’m afraid.’

  ‘What about his concern for Elena?’

  Gates gave the same ironic smile. ‘Mr Arias could not seem to separate Elena’s needs from whatever he wanted. It was somewhat akin to Mr Arias’s relationship with his own mother.’

  ‘Did he say what he would do if an evaluation actually occurred?’

  ‘Yes. He didn’t want one, he said. But he told me he’d been working overtime on Elena’s teacher, trying to make the right impression, and thought he was looking pretty go
od.’ Her tone was dry. ‘As I said to Mr Salinas, Mr Arias tended to look ahead.’

  It was time, Caroline thought, to resurrect the idea of suicide. ‘Isn’t it possible, Dr Gates, that – faced with real scrutiny by a trained psychologist – Mr Arias would contemplate suicide in order to avoid exposure?’

  Gates’s eyes narrowed in thought. ‘Possible? In some remote way, I suppose I can imagine it. But Mr Arias wasn’t anywhere near that point. Although Ms Peralta’s trip to Italy unsettled him, the last day I saw him he seemed quite hopeful that she and Mr Paget might back down. In fact, he was intent on confirming his Monday appointment to discuss that further.’

  Caroline studied her. ‘Why,’ she finally asked, ‘did you keep on seeing this man?’

  Gates frowned at her folded hands. ‘I asked myself that, continually. Fairly early on, I saw what his problems were. But I hoped that I could control his worst excesses, perhaps help him see things in a somewhat different light. That was why I gave him my opinion about what the test might show – to persuade him to stop using Elena as a pawn. At every step, there was always a reason for what I did.’ She paused, finishing quietly: ‘And, step by step, it seems to have yielded one bad result after another. To the end of Mr Arias’s life, and beyond.’

  It was a terrible concession, Caroline thought, simply stated. ‘I take it,’ she asked gently, ‘that you reached some conclusions about Mr Arias’s fitness to raise a child?’

  Slowly, Gates looked up. ‘I don’t know Ms Peralta at all, Ms Masters. I don’t know much about Elena’s circumstances, or Elena herself. But it is very difficult to imagine the circumstances in which I would give Ricardo Arias custody of a child.’

  Watching Caroline return to the table, Paget was buffeted by emotions in conflict. He felt a deep relief for Terri: however hard they had been for her to reach, her beliefs about Richie were right, and her decision to leave with Elena – and later to fight for her – had been vindicated. And closer to home, no one on the jury would convict Paget himself as an act of vengeance for a suffering father.