The Memory Thief

by Don Donaldson

  “Never is a strong word.”

  “So is isolated.” He gestured to two upholstered chairs facing each other across a small table. “We can talk here.”

  “In the hallway?”

  “Do you need a more private place?”

  “I don’t need it. I just thought . . . Sure, this is fine.”

  A moment later, with each of Quinn’s bony hands draped over the armrest of his chair, and Marti’s hands resting on the shoulder tote in her lap, Quinn said, “Why did you find it necessary to strike out at me before answering Dr. Lane’s question a few minutes ago?”

  “I was angry at being put on the spot like that.”

  “It was a risky thing to do.”

  “Was it? Are you a man who holds grudges?”

  Quinn stared at her without answering, his eyes boring into her. Should she have apologized? Is that what he was looking for? Somehow, she thought not; that he might find backtracking a sign of weakness.

  Finally, he spoke again. “In most psychiatry training, the residents must themselves undergo therapy. Was that the case with your program?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what did you discover about yourself during therapy?”

  “Why is that important for you to know?”

  Suddenly, Quinn’s deep-set eyes flashed with anger. “I’m not your patient, Dr. Segerson. Stop trying to deflect my questions back to me.”

  Marti’s mind shifted into a gear more suitable to rough terrain. What to tell him? She’d hidden the primary purpose in her life from her therapist and even her closest friends. No one knew how much she was driven by hatred, how she longed to strike back, how she’d waited and waited. And now the opportunity was so near . . . “I learned that my obsession with perfection is a constant attempt to please my father, whose criticism of everything I did as a child came from his wish for a son.”

  Marti waited to see how Quinn would receive this fabrication. It was exactly the kind of thing most psychiatrists would love to hear. But Quinn wasn’t your average psychiatrist.

  Quinn mulled her lie over without giving any indication of approval or disapproval, then he said, “Gibson State is an underfunded facility in a rural area of Tennessee that has no cultural amenities. The nearest large city, Memphis, is seventy miles away. The favorite pastimes of most of the local males are drinking beer and shooting animals for the fun of it. The women quilt and gossip. Our existing psychiatry staff consists of the dregs of the profession—licenses restricted because of substance abuse, poorly trained foreigners who can’t phrase a question properly, and people who are just not very smart. You come very highly recommended, and all indications are that you could have any job you wish, so I have to wonder, why would you want to work at Gibson?”

  Marti wanted very much to ask him why he was there, but her behavior had already been far too overbearing. So she let that one go. “I’ve never liked city life. Rural appeals to me. And, of course, there’s your large population of the chronic severely ill. There aren’t many places where I could get the kind of experience they can provide.”

  “They’re kept so sedated they’re more dead than alive. I don’t know what you’re going to learn from them.”

  Marti longed to suggest that maybe these people were being overmedicated, but once again, she kept the thought to herself. “Still, I’d like the experience.”

  “Dr. Segerson, I don’t think you’re being totally candid. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t hire you, but a copy of all applications to Gibson go to the State Department of Mental Health, where I’m sure they’ll see that your credentials are far better than any of our current staff. There’s also a statewide initiative in place to give preference to female applicants.”

  “So you’re saying—”

  “If I don’t hire you, it’ll generate a blizzard of paperwork that I don’t have time to fool with. So get out the horns and paper hats. We’ve got a new member of the Gibson family.”

  Chapter 2

  GIBSON STATE mental hospital. Simple black lettering on a white background. And below that, in smaller letters, the firm admonition, DO NOT PICK UP HITCHHIKERS.

  As Marti slowed and turned into the hospital entrance, she tried to think how the warning on the sign might have been better conveyed. As it was, it sounded as though the patients were routinely escaping. But maybe they were. Since it was her first day on the job, she had no way of knowing. But God help the people who lived nearby if that was true.

  Because of a dense and gloomy woods, the hospital couldn’t be seen from the highway. Ten feet from the main road, the massive entrance gates stood open and unattended, the little stone guardhouse between the inbound and outbound lanes empty. Except for a grassy shoulder, the road onto the property was lined by the same ominous woods that flanked the highway. Even through the window of her car, Marti could hear the croaking of frogs in the wet bottomlands.

  The road seemed to go on and on, its edges encroached by fingers of grass, the asphalt full of fissures and potholes. Finally, the road made a gentle curve, and there it was—a looming, Gothic, four-story brick building with great oval windows and spiked towers topped by metal rods. The only things missing from the scene were flashes of lightning and a crowd of angry villagers with torches. It looked like an evil place. Or maybe it merely seemed that way because she knew what awaited her inside.

  She gripped the wheel harder to still her suddenly shaking hands and headed into the ample parking lot, which easily held the ninety or so cars already there. As she pulled into an empty space, she noticed that the one reserved spot, for Oren Quinn, was vacant. Remembering her uncomfortable interview with him in Washington, she was glad she wouldn’t have to face him right away.

  She shut off the engine, but felt too queasy to get out of the car. So she sat and stared at the hospital through the windshield, her body rebelling at the thought of going inside. As she tried to gather herself, her mind spiraled back to when she was twelve . . . the night she had slept at her sister’s beach house . . . the night that made her what she had become.

  What was that?

  Marti sat up in bed, instantly awake. It sounded like . . . it was . . . the patio door sliding on its track.

  She glanced at the open doorway to the hall and saw with mounting fear that it was dark. If Lee was up, there’d be lights on in the kitchen and they’d illuminate the hall.

  Unwilling to believe there was a stranger in the house, Marti leaped off the bed, ran to the doorway, and looked at the mirror on the folding closet doors opposite Lee’s bedroom.

  Oh God . . . there she was . . . still asleep.

  The slight sound of hesitant footsteps from the kitchen made her want to pee.

  He’s coming this way.

  She glanced frantically around the tiny room that offered very few hiding places . . . none of them any good.

  The closet?

  No. He’d hear the folding doors rattle when they opened.

  Under the bed?

  Too confining and there wasn’t time.

  The floor on the far side of the bed?

  Suddenly, she heard the barely audible rustle of the intruder’s pant legs rubbing together. One more step and he’d be in the doorway. Praying that she could move more quietly than whoever was out there, Marti slid behind the open door.

  With her nose practically against the wood and air hard to come by, she began to breathe through her mouth.

  Then he was in the doorway. She didn’t hear anything that told her that, she just felt it.

  What would he do when he saw that her bed was empty? Would he slam the door against her? Would he reach behind it and yank her into the open? The tension was almost more than she could bear.

  She heard him breathe . . . a quivering exhalation that made her want to scream.

 
Marti fought her way back to the present, more distressed now than a moment ago.

  “Get control of yourself,” she muttered. And, with an effort, she did.

  She’d been told to arrive for her first day at nine-thirty, so the place would already be settled into the morning routine, and she could fit seamlessly into the operation.

  She had some books and other things in the trunk that she would want at hand in her office, but there seemed no point in lugging it all in now. So when she got out of the car, she headed directly for the building’s front steps, carrying only her briefcase.

  Inside, she was impressed at the scale and grandeur of what she saw. Under immense Oriental carpets, there must have been an acre of hardwood flooring, glistening in the light cast from the biggest crystal chandelier she’d ever seen. Straight ahead was a double winding staircase right out of Gone with the Wind. On the right wall there was a reproduction of Van Gogh’s Starry Night, a painting that always made her think of mental illness. But this one was huge—a hint, she thought, of what lay beyond this deceptive facade.

  Her instructions were to report to the office of the medical director, Dr. Howard Rosenblum. Spotting a directory on a chrome stand by the big staircase, she headed that way and looked for his name.

  There it was—first floor, but in which of the hallways off the main room, left or right?

  Guessing, she went left.

  As she crossed the large room, she caught just the barest whiff of warehoused humans. Then she began to notice other things that changed her initial impression of the place. When she stepped off the carpeting onto the bare hardwood, her footsteps echoed slightly, making her realize there were no drapes at the window, just some simple, inexpensive fabric treatments. Off to her left, a big water stain had made a Rorschach pattern on the ceiling, and there was some badly damaged plaster on the adjacent wall. The carpets, she now noticed, were worn almost through in spots.

  Entering the hall, she discovered from the room numbers that she’d chosen wrong. So off she went, to the other hallway, like a rat learning a new maze.

  Certainly no one could accuse the Gibson administration of overspending on their receptionist’s digs, for when Marti opened the door with Howard Rosenblum’s name on it, she found herself in Spartan surroundings with unadorned beige walls and simple metal furniture.

  The woman behind the black desk turned from her computer. “May I help you?”

  Extremely thin and stringy, the woman must have been seventy, but she had strawberry blond, twenty-year-old hair that lay in soft curls around her face.

  “I’m Dr. Segerson.” Marti waited a moment to see if her name meant anything to the woman. Noting no sign of that, she added, “The new staff psychiatrist.”

  The sun of recognition dawned on the woman’s face. “Yes, of course . . . Dr. Segerson.” She picked up the phone and punched in some numbers. “Dr. Rosenblum, Dr. Segerson is here.”

  She hung up, and even while she was saying, “He’ll be right—” the door to the inner office flew open and out came a lanky, completely bald man whose black-framed glasses and similarly colored mustache and goatee made him look like the image on a defaced poster.

  “Dr. Segerson, so good to see you.” He offered his hand and she took it. “So . . . all the way from California. Have any trouble finding a place to stay?”

  “I contacted a Realtor on the Internet and located something very quickly.”

  “Good for you. Sometime today—” he gestured to his receptionist “—give Pat your address and phone number. Pat, will you ask Dr. Estes to join us, please?” While the receptionist picked up the phone, he turned back to Marti. “How much water do you drink?”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “How much water do you drink?”

  Puzzled at the question, Marti answered, “I don’t know . . . a glass or two.”

  Rosenblum wagged his finger at her. “Not enough, not nearly enough. You must do better.” Before she could respond, he said, “In the letter you sent Dr. Quinn after your interview, you asked to be assigned to one of our chronic wards, preferably a forensic unit.”

  This pushed his odd question about her water consumption out of her mind and kicked her heart into a new, faster rhythm.

  Here it was . . . the next hurdle.

  She’d passed the interview and was now on the grounds as an employee . . . closing in. She couldn’t come right out and ask to be assigned to Vernon Odessa’s unit. That would have created too much suspicion. So she’d tried to pave the way to him by that letter. But had it worked?

  “For someone at this stage in your career, you’ve certainly had a lot of experience with forensic patients,” Rosenblum said.

  “The criminal mind has always been one of my interests.”

  “Something you share with Dr. Quinn,” Rosenblum replied. “In any event, we don’t have a forensic unit. We do have some forensic patients, but they’re integrated into the rest of our population. Though I’ve had to do some shifting of staff responsibilities, I’ve assigned you to the unit that has the largest number of them, which actually isn’t very many.”

  The unit with the largest number of them . . . Marti was encouraged. The odds of having Odessa on her service were . . . what? She didn’t even know how many units they had, so she couldn’t calculate the odds. But they must be at least slightly in her favor.

  The door to the hallway opened and a woman with a heart-shaped face and the look of a librarian came in.

  “Ah, Dr. Estes,” Rosenblum said.

  He introduced the two women, and Marti learned that Trina Estes was the psychologist assigned to the same patients Marti would be serving and that Trina would be showing her around the place.

  “Trina, I’ve assigned her to Dr. Avazian’s old office, two thirty-three. You might want to start by taking her up there.” He looked at the receptionist. “Do you have—”

  Even as Rosenblum spoke, the woman produced a plastic ID on a chain from a side drawer of her desk and handed it to Marti. “You can either use the chain or just clip it on your blouse with that thumb spring.”

  Marti glanced briefly at the ID and saw that the photo she’d sent at their request had reproduced well. Of course, this was no surprise, for she was one of those people who never took a bad picture, always looking in her photos like a model.

  Over the years, she’d learned that when she wore it long, her sandy-colored hair was a man magnet. Tired of fending off the unwanted attention and feeling that she needed to look more professional, two days after starting her residency she’d had most of it cut off, so now it was about as long as Harrison Ford wore his. And in truth, there was no prescription in the lenses of her dark-framed, Rosenblum-like glasses. Those, too, being part of her wish to blend into the background. In her estimation, these attempts at warding off unwanted male attention had been about two percent effective. Unwilling to put any more thought into the problem, and figuring that two percent was better than nothing, she’d just kept the look.

  Pat reached into a different drawer and pulled out two small manila envelopes that she handed to Marti. One was labeled “233,” the other “2 East.”

  “Office key and the ones for the doors to your wards,” Rosenblum said. “Your patients’ files should already be on your desk.” He looked at Pat for confirmation and she nodded.

  Rosenblum continued, “Since you’ll be on one of our chronic units, the files of many of your patients are too voluminous to be kept fully in the metal ward binders. We normally shift the dated overflow to medical records, where everything is transferred to a soft-cover jacket. You’ll see both those in your office. So, I guess we’re finished here.”

  As soon as they were in the hallway, Trina said, “Did he ask you how much water you drink?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “H
e asks everybody. And no matter what you say, he suggests you should be doing the opposite.”

  “What’s his training?”

  “Psychiatrist.”

  “Is he competent?”

  “He must be, he’s the medical director.”

  Trina’s comment was loaded with subtext, but Marti didn’t feel she should pursue it.

  THE OFFICE Marti had been given contained the same utilitarian furniture she’d seen downstairs. On the desk was a computer and stacks of the two kinds of binders Rosenblum had mentioned. Outlines of pictures that used to hang there were evident on every wall. Next to the baseboard left of the desk lay a couple of dead cockroaches circled with white chalk. Beside each circle was a date: one three weeks earlier, the other, a month.

  “Just Dr. Avazian’s way of documenting how infrequently his floor got swept,” Trina explained.

  “Was housekeeping avoiding his office for some reason?”

  “He didn’t get treated any differently from anyone else around here.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “INS took him away. He was Iranian, apparently here illegally. Ready to see your patients?”

  Her patients.

  Without warning, the question thrust Marti once again into the past, and she found herself behind the door in Lee’s beach house, the intruder just inches away.

  She heard him breathe . . . a quivering exhalation that made her want to scream.

  But she didn’t scream. She held her ground and tried to be someplace else in her mind. Then, even though he should have known the room was occupied, he moved on.

  Or had he? Though Marti really believed he was no longer right on the other side of the doorway, she couldn’t be sure. So she stayed put and prayed that Lee would wake up and call 911, for the only phone in the house was in her room.

  After what seemed like the longest time she’d ever stood without moving, she heard a voice, and it wasn’t right beside her.

  “Hello, Goldilocks. It’s Pappa Bear, come to have a party.”