Jonathan Kellerman - Alex 03 - Over the Edge

by Over the Edge

  He led me across the hall and down two steps into a large oyster-coloured living room, carpeted in beige wool. Blackout drapes had been drawn over every window, leaving two table lamps the sole source of illumination.

  The room was expensively underfurnished: stiff sofas upholstered in dull mushroom damask; a pair of Queen Anne chairs similarly covered; spindly-legged Chippendale tables redolent of lemon oil. Off to one corner was an ebony Steinway grand. Hanging from the walls were second-rate English still lifes and landscapes framed in mahogany, their pigments faded to genteel obscurity. A limestone mantel hovered over a dead fireplace. Atop it was the room's sole incongruity: a collection of primitive sculptures - half a dozen squat, slant-eyed faces hewn of rough grey stone.

  A woman sat on the sofa. She stood as I entered, tall and fashion-model thin.

  'Good afternoon, Dr. Delaware,' she said in a wispy, little-girl voice. 'I'm Heather Cadmus.' To Antrim: 'Thank you, Tully. You may go now.'

  The chauffeur left, and I walked toward her.

  I knew she was close to her husband's age, but she looked ten years younger. Her face was long, pale, and unlined, tapering to a sharp, firm chin. Except for a hint of eyeliner, she wore no make-up. Her hair was chestnut brown, cut shoulder length, flipped at the ends, and trimmed to feathery bangs covering a high, flat forehead. Under the bangs were large, round grey eyes. Perpendicular to them

  was a thin but strong nose, gently uptilted, the nostrils slightly pinched - a debutante face, scrubbed, pedigreed, and girlishly pretty. The picture of casual wealth was rounded out by her attire: pink oxford shirt with button-down collar, charcoal wool A-line skirt, flat brown doeskin loafers, no jewellery save for a single diamond-studded wedding band. Her hands were small-boned and narrow, with long, tapered fingers. She held out a hand, and I took it.

  'Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Cadmus.' 'Heather, please,' she said in that same oddly tinkling voice. 'Won't you sit down?' She settled down again but remained on the edge of the sofa. Maintaining an erect posture, she smoothed her skirt and crossed her legs at the ankles. I sat in one of the Queen Annes and tried to ignore the discomfort.

  She smiled nervously and folded her hands in her lap. A moment later a Hispanic maid in a black uniform appeared at the entrance to the room. Heather acknowledged her with a nod, and they talked briefly in rapid Spanish. 'Can I get you something, Doctor?'. 'Nothing, thanks.' She dismissed the maid.

  Muffled shouts filtered through the curtains from the street. Turning toward the sound, she winced. 'It was too soon to come back. They've placed the house under siege. I'm just thankful my children don't have to see it. They've been through so much already.'

  'Your husband told me Jamey was very rough on them,' I said, taking out my notepad.

  'He was,' she said softly. 'They're only little girls, and he scared them so.' Her voice broke. 'I can't stop worrying about how all this is going to affect them. And the stress on my husband is unbelievable.' I nodded sympathetically.

  'Please don't misunderstand me,' she said. 'I care deeply about Jamey. Just thinking about what's happened to him is... unbearable.'

  'From what I understand you and he were very close.'

  'I - I used to think so. I thought I'd done right by him. Now I'm not sure of anything.'

  Her voice broke again, and one of the hands in her lap gathered up a handful of wool and squeezed until the knuckles turned white.

  'Heather, I need to ask some questions that may be upsetting. If this isn't a good time, I can come back.'

  'Oh, no, I'm fine. Please do what you have to.'

  'All right. Let's start with the time of your marriage. Jamey was five. How did he react to your entering the family?'

  She flinched, as if the question had wounded her, then turned pensive, phrasing her response. 'It was a difficult period for all of us. Overnight I went from single girl to instant stepmother. It's a terrible role, so fraught with evil connotations. Not the way I saw myself at twenty-four. I thought I was prepared, but I wasn't.'

  'What kinds of problems were there?'

  'What you'd expect. Jamey was very jealous of my husband's attention, which was understandable - Dwight had been more of a father to him than anyone. Then, all of a sudden, there I was. He perceived me as his rival and did his best to try to eliminate me. From a child's perspective it must have been the logical thing to do,'

  'What did he do?'

  'Insulted me, refused to mind, made believe I wasn't there. He could use his intelligence to be quite cruel, but I understood that it came from fear and was determined to endure. I developed a thick skin and dug in my heels. Eventually he accepted my presence, and after a while we got to the point where we could talk. Dwight was heavily involved with the company, and I stayed home; that meant I did most of the parenting. We ended up doing quite a bit of talking. Not that most of it was on a very personal level -he was a loner and kept his feelings to himself; after I had my own children, I realised how close mouthed he really was - but from time to time he even confided in me.'

  She paused and looked down at her hands, which were gripping her skirt like talons. Then she took a deep breath and consciously relaxed them.

  'In view of what's happened, I know that doesn't sound like much, Doctor, but at the time I thought I was doing great.'

  Her bottom lip trembled, and she turned away. The light from one of the lamps cast an aura around her profile, giving her the look of a life-sized cameo.

  'Did he ever talk to you about homosexuality?' Her husband had reacted to the gay issue with anger and denial, but she remained outwardly unruffled.

  'No. By the time he - is the expression "came out"? - he was already spending most of his time with Dig Chancellor and having little to do with us.'

  'Do you think Chancellor had something to do with his coming out?'

  She gave that some thought.

  'I suppose he might have eased the way by serving as a role model, but if you're asking if he bent a straight twig, no, I don't believe that.'

  'Then you do feel he's homosexual?' The question surprised her. 'Of course he is.'

  'Your husband believes quite differently.' 'Doctor' - she sighed - 'my husband is a very fine man. Hard-working, a dedicated father. But he can also be very stubborn. When he gets an idea in his head, even one that's illogical, it's impossible to budge him. He loves Jamey deeply; until recently he thought of him as a son. The idea that he isn't sexually normal is something he just can't face up to.'

  In view of the much harsher realities about Jamey, I wondered why the boy's sexual proclivities loomed so large in the assault upon Cadmus's defence system. But there was no point bringing that up now. 'When did you realise he was gay?' I asked. 'I suspected it for a while. Once when I was supervising the maid as she tidied up his room, I came across some homosexual pornography. I knew if I told Dwight there'd be an explosion, so I simply threw the pictures away and

  hoped it was a transitory thing. But a few weeks later he'd replaced what I'd got rid of and added to the collection. It made me realise that he really had a problem. After that I started to put things together: how he'd never been interested in sports or playing with other boys; the way he avoided girls. We're quite active socially, and there was no shortage of opportunities for him to meet young ladies, but when we made suggestions or tried to introduce him to someone, he got angry and stalked away. After he had started seeing Dig, my suspicions were confirmed.'

  'How did he and Chancellor meet?'

  She gnawed her lip and looked uncomfortable.

  'Do we really need to get into that? It's a very... sensitive issue.'

  'It's bound to come out at the trial.'

  She leaned forward and took a platinum cigarette case from the coffee table. Next to it was a matching lighter, which I picked up. By the time she'd placed a filter-tipped cigarette between her lips I had a flame ready.

  'Thank you,' she said, sitting back and blowing out a lacy stream of smoke. 'I quit two years ago.
Now I'm putting away half a pack a day.'

  I waited as she consumed a third of the cigarette. Resting what was left of it on the rim of a crystal ashtray, she continued:

  'Are you certain... about its becoming public?'

  'I'm afraid so. Even if the prosecution doesn't bring it up, the relationship between Jamey and Chancellor is likely to be a key part of the defence.'

  'Yes,' she said grimly. 'Horace talked to us about that. I suppose he knows best.' She dragged once on the cigarette and put it down. 'If you must know, they met here. At a dinner party. It was a business affair, black tie, the inauguration of a new company project. Dig's bank had invested in it, as had several other institutions. Dwight's idea was to bring all the investors together in order to make a show of unity and get things off on the right foot. It started off as a beautiful evening - catering by Perino's, champagne, an orchestra, and dancing. My girls were allowed to stay up and be little hostesses. Jamey was invited, too, of course, but he stayed in his room all night, reading. I remember it clearly, because I'd had a set of evening wear made up for him, as a surprise. When I presented it to him, he refused even to look at it.'

  'So he never joined the party?'

  'Not for a second. Dig must have wandered upstairs, and somehow they ran into each other and started talking. Midway through the party Dwight found them. He'd gone up to take an aspirin and saw the two of them sitting on Jamey's bed, reading poetry. He was outraged. Everyone was well aware of Dig's... tastes. Dwight felt that he was abusing our hospitality. He stepped in immediately and escorted him back downstairs - politely but firmly. It ruined the party for him, though he put on a good face. That night we talked about it, and he admitted that he'd also been worried about Jamey's sexuality for quite some time. Maybe it was naive, but at that point both of us still felt that he was a confused teenager who could go either way and that Dig was the last person in the world he needed. We prayed nothing would come of the chance meeting, but of course it did. Immediately. The next morning, after Dwight left for work, Dig picked Jamey up, and they disappeared together for the entire day. The same thing happened the following day. Soon Jamey was spending more time at Dig's house than here. My husband was livid - doubly so because he blamed himself for the initial meeting. He wanted to drive to Dig's place and drag Jamey away, but I convinced him it would do more harm than good.'

  'In what way?'

  'I didn't want things to get physical. My husband's fit, but Dig waa a huge man. He worked out with weights. And I was afraid of how Jamey would react if confronted.'

  'Were you worried about violence?'

  'No. Not then. Only that he'd become verbally abusive and impossible to live with.'

  'Did the mental deterioration start before or after he met Chancellor?'

  'Horace asked me the same thing, and I've racked my brain trying to remember. But it's hard to pinpoint. It wasn't as if he were a normal boy who had suddenly started acting bizarre. He was never like other children, so the change was more gradual. All I can say is it was around the time Dig started showing an interest in him.'

  'Did you or your husband ever discuss Jamey with Chancellor?'

  'Not a word. We suffered in silence.'

  'That must have put quite a strain on your relationship with Chancellor.'

  'Not really. The only relationship that had ever existed had been a business one.'

  'Did that continue?'

  The grey eyes smouldered with anger, and a flush rose in her cheeks. The delicate muscles of her jaw fluttered, and when she spoke, her voice had risen in pitch.

  'Doctor, if you're suggesting that we backed off in order to put more change in our pockets, let me assure you - '

  'I wasn't suggesting anything of the sort,' I broke in. 'Merely trying to get a picture of how the relationship with Chancellor affected the family.'

  'How it affected us? It tore us apart. But no, we didn't sever business connections. You don't go dismantling a multimillion-dollar project upon which thousands of people depend because of personal matters. If that were the case, nothing in this world would ever get done.'

  She retrieved the cigarette and puffed on it furiously. I gave her some time to cool down. When she finished smoking, she stubbed it out, patted her hair, and forced a smile.

  'Forgive me,' she said. 'It's been very difficult.'

  'There's nothing to forgive. These are tough questions.'

  She nodded. 'Please go on.'

  'Does your husband still blame himself for what happened between Jamey and Chancellor?'

  'Yes. I've tried to tell him it would have happened one way or another, that homosexuality is inborn, not something you can be talked into, but as I mentioned before, he's a very stubborn man.'

  The roots of Cadmus's denial had grown clearer, and I understood why raising the issue of Jamey's relationship with Chancellor had ended my interview with Dwight.

  'He's consumed with guilt,' she added, 'to the point where I'm concerned about his health.'

  I remembered the ravenous way he'd eyed the bottle of Glenlivet and guessed what kind of health problem she was worried about. Changing the subject, I asked:

  'As far as you know, did Dig Chancellor use drugs?'

  'As I said, I didn't know him well, so I really couldn't tell you for certain. But intuitively I'd say no. Like so many of them, he was obsessed with his body - vegetarianism, organic foods, weight-lifting; the man was the picture of health, massively muscular. He influenced Jamey to the point where he wouldn't eat in our home. So I can't see him polluting himself.'

  What she was saying sounded logical on the surface, but it didn't mean much; the most zealous health freaks had a way of making an exception when it came to a cocaine buzz or an amyl nitrate orgasm.

  'What about Jamey? Do you know of his taking drugs?'

  'When he started acting bizarrely, I wondered about it. In fact, it was the first thing I thought of.'

  'Why's that?'

  'The way he was behaving seemed similar to a bum LSD or PCP trip, maybe even a reaction to bad speed.'

  The drug talk seemed out of place coming from her patrician lips. She saw my surprise and smiled.

  'I volunteer at a drug rehab centre sponsored by the Junior League. It's a halfway house and counselling centre for teenagers trying to get off hard drugs. We established it after the First Lady made a plea for citizen involvement. I've spent five hours a week there for the last eighteen months, and it's been very educational. Not that I was naive about drugs - I attended Stanford in the sixties - but things have got a lot worse since the sixties. The stories some of the kids tell are unbelievable: ten-year-olds on

  heroin; designer drugs; babies born addicted. It's sensitized me to the enormousness of the problem. That is why when Jamey started acting strangely, I panicked and called one of the counsellors at the centre. She agreed that it could be hallucinogens but said that the possibility of some kind of mental breakdown shouldn't be overlooked. Unfortunately I heard only the part about drugs and blocked out the rest.'

  She stopped, suddenly embarrassed.

  'What I'm going to tell you now may sound stupid, but you have to understand that he was falling apart and I was frightened, for the entire family.'

  'Please go on. I'm sure it's not stupid at all.'

  She leaned forward penitently.

  'I turned into a snoop, Doctor. Kept a close watch on him for telltale signs when I thought he wasn't looking -examining his pupils, surreptitiously checking his arms for needle marks. Several times I sneaked into his room and took it apart in hope of finding a syringe or a pill or some powder - anything I could have analysed at the centre. All I found were more of his dirty pictures. Once I even borrowed a pair of his underpants, thinking a urine trace could be done from it. In the end I came up with nothing and he kept deteriorating. I finally realised it had to be mental illness.'

  She took another cigarette out of the case, had second thoughts, and put it down on the table.

 
; 'I've lost a lot of sleep wondering if catching it sooner would have made a difference. Dr. Mainwaring assured us that the schizophrenia was genetically programmed and would have occurred with or without treatment. What do you think?'

  'Schizophrenia's not like cancer. Response to treatment has more to do with individual biology than with how quickly you start. You have nothing to feel guilty about.'

  'I appreciate that,' she said. 'I really do. Is there anything else you'd like to know?'

  'You said before he confided in you - '

  'Infrequently.'