I’m not the kind of girl who begs the John Mulvaneys of the world for dinner companionship.
Yet that was what he was out there saying about me. To my boss.
And even if I were the kind of girl who begged the John Mulvaneys of the world for dinner companionship, I wouldn’t be the kind of girl or the kind of psychologist who would hit on a patient.
It was utterly unthinkable. The most heinous of offenses.
Therapy patients trust their therapists with the deep, intimate details of their lives. They make themselves utterly vulnerable to us. They cry in front of us—I go through crates of tissue in my office—they tell us their secrets, they confide their hopes and confess their dismal, most humiliating failures.
To abuse this trust by violating that person sexually would be completely unconscionable to me. Not to mention that it would go against every moral fiber of my being. And it would get me thrown out of my chosen profession in less time than it would take to boil water.
And yet that was what someone was out there saying about me. To my boss.
Add to this that I was in the midst of a spiritual nightmare that was so macabre and so bizarre, I wouldn’t even wish it on John Mulvaney whom I was quickly beginning to abhor.
When I added it all up, I began to feel truly disoriented. Disoriented and afraid.
Afraid of what would happen to my career. Afraid of what would happen to my reputation. Afraid of the jewelry locked in my buffet. Afraid of flies. You name it, I was afraid of it.
So I did what most twenty-first century American Christians would do in such a circumstance. I sat there and worried about it. Sucking down a couple of gallons of tea, I sat there and fed the fear. Sheer, panicky, heart-fluttering, clammy-handed fear.
It wasn’t until long after the sun came up that it dawned on me to pray. And even then, it was as a last resort.
Somehow, even as long as I’ve known the Lord, I remain convinced that secretly. He wants me to make it without Him. Why I think this, I don’t know. The entirety of Scripture defies this stupid little theory of mine. And I don’t believe it in words, really. When I think about it, I know it doesn’t make any sense. But I live it out every day.
I pray easily for others. Tony DeStefano had reminded me of that. And I randomly thank God for parking places and for unexpected M&Ms in the bottom of my purse. But for some reason, I resist praying for myself when I really need help. I seem to prefer trudging along without an umbrella, in driving rain, moving under my own power, when the Ferrari of the Holy Spirit is revved up and ready to go, right there beside me, if I would just bother to get in and fasten the seat belt.
But finally, I gave up. I fixed myself another cup of tea and bowed my head.
The words didn’t come. They rarely do when I’m the subject of my own prayers. But I let myself sink into the fear and remembered Gavin’s story about his dream. His prayer was so simple. He didn’t want to be afraid anymore. Could God take away his fear? Would He?
It seemed like a good place to start. So that was what I asked for. Begged for, more like.
And I asked to be exonerated of the abuse charge. Immediately. I asked for clear and unambiguous information in that kid’s file that would let me off the hook. Now.
Rarely do I get a direct answer to prayer, and rarely is the answer such a stunning, resounding no. But soon after I breathed my amen, the phone rang.
It was Helene.
“Bad news,” she said.
“What?”
“Erik Zocci is a saint.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“I wish I were. I pulled his case file and his academic file this morning.” I heard her flipping pages. “Erik Michael Zocci. Hometown: Chicago. Religion: Catholic. Engineering major. SAT score 1480. Lived in Morrison dorm his freshman year. Takes a full load every semester. GPA 3.8.” She flipped some more pages. “No psych testing in either file.”
“You have my case notes there?” I asked.
“Right in front of me. You saw him three times over a period of two months. This was last summer, not this recent one. Looks like this was between his freshman and sophomore years. He’d be starting his junior year now.”
“What was the presenting problem?”
“He was experiencing insomnia. Dropping weight. Having trouble with his summer courses. I’m getting this off the intake sheet.”
“What’s his diagnosis?”
“Diagnosis 309.28. Adjustment disorder with mixed features of anxiety and depression.”
“Did I list a precipitating event? Anything set it off?”
She paused. “Not that I can see.” I heard her turn the page. “Says he was waking up screaming. His roommate was the one who wanted him to see a counselor. Who could blame him?”
The light bulb went on in my head. “I remember him. Skinny kid. Tall. He was having nightmares, I think. Anything on the content of the nightmares?”
“Yep. Here it is. I’m going to quote directly. ‘Patient describes recurring nightmare involving pale, sickly white man. In his dream, the man chases Erik. Typical dream response—Erik paralyzed, unable to run in the dream. Erik always wakes up before the man catches him.’”
I felt my skin get cold. “Anything else about the dreams?”
“No. You speculate that it may have something to do with his fears of failure. Maybe a parallel between the man in the dream and Erik’s fears about himself. Running from his perceived weaknesses.”
Weak psychobabble on my part.
“Any mention in the file of anything awkward between me and him?” I asked.
“Nothing. He didn’t even terminate. He just stopped coming. You make a note that you called twice to follow up but didn’t get a return phone call.”
I thought for a moment. Nothing she’d read would help or hurt me. Half our students had adjustment disorders, which was just a fancy way of saying they were having a difficult but fairly normal experience in a time of their lives defined by change and adjustment. It didn’t mean he was unstable and certainly not that he was mentally ill.
“What about the academic file? Is there a complaint listed in there or anything?”
I heard Helene turning pages again. “I don’t see anything.” I waited while she read. “But it does say he transferred. End of his sophomore year. To University of Dallas.”
“Transferred? He’s not even at SMU anymore?”
“Not according to this.”
“Is there any way we can get his file from UD without having to explain why we need it?”
“What would be the point? He’s been there a week. They won’t have any information I don’t have in front of me.”
I paused, letting it all sink in. “What do you think, Helene?”
She paused. I knew she didn’t want to say it. “I need to sit down with Erik Zocci and talk to him directly”
“So let’s do it. Did you arrange to meet with him or anything?”
“No. I wanted to talk to you first. But I’ll call him back and do a quick phone interview. And I’ll set up a meeting with him early this week.”
“Can I go with you?”
“Definitely not. Not until after I’ve spoken with him and figured out what we’re dealing with.”
“When are you going to call him?” I asked.
“What time is it?”
I looked at the clock on the wall. “Nine-thirty”
“I’ll call him now. I’ll call you back after I talk to him.”
We hung up and I paced the kitchen for a few minutes until the phone rang.
I snatched it up. “What did he say?”
“What did who say?” It was my father.
“Oh. Hi, Dad. No one. I thought you were someone else.”
“You should say hello when you pick up the phone.”
“Hello.”
“Much better. How are you, Dylan? I haven’t heard from you in a while.”
“Great. Doing just great. You?”
“B
usy Working a lot.”
“Not slicing and dicing anyone this morning?”
“Not on a Saturday I’ve got a tee time in twenty minutes, though. What do you need?”
I’d forgotten I’d called him. “Oh. I wanted to talk to you about mom’s funeral.”
“Her funeral?” he said, clearly taken aback. A rare chink in the armor for my dad. “Why would you want to talk about that?”
“Long story. I just needed to ask you a couple of questions.”
“Okay. What?”
“Do you remember what she was wearing when we buried her?”
“A powder blue suit, I think. Why?”
“Anything else? Any jewelry?”
“Her wedding ring. You know that. That’s all I remember. Probably some earrings or something.”
“Do you remember seeing it on her hand? Her wedding ring, I mean. Or had we just talked about burying her in it?”
“What’s this about, Dylan?” He sounded rattled.
“I’m just wondering. I thought I remembered seeing it on her finger, but I wasn’t sure. I wanted to check with you.”
“It was definitely on her finger. She never took it off.”
“I know she never took it off. But do you specifically remember seeing it on her finger before they closed the lid?”
“Dylan, I don’t remember.” He sounded angry now. “I wasn’t taking a detailed inventory of her burial attire at the time. My wife had just died.”
“Ex-wife.”
“Ex-wife. Fine. Why are you bringing this up now?”
“Do you remember if we saw them take the casket from the funeral home to the hearse? Or were we already in the car when they moved her?”
“I don’t remember. How am I supposed to remember something like that? What’s wrong with you?”
I heard my call-waiting click.
“I’ve got another call, Dad. I’ll call you back. Have fun on the golf course.” I hung up and clicked over.
“Hello?”
“Dylan, it’s me,” Helene said.
Something was wrong. I could tell from the sound of her voice.
“Well? What did you find out? Did you talk to him?”
“I called the number from this morning—the one he gave me. And it wasn’t a working number. So I tried his parents in Chicago.”
“And? Did you get them?”
“I talked to his mother.”
“Well? What did she say?”
“Erik Zocci is dead, Dylan.”
“Dead! Of what? What happened to him?”
“He committed suicide. He jumped off the balcony of the Vendome in Chicago. He fell twelve floors.”
“This morning? After you talked to him?”
“Two weeks ago.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“I know it doesn’t.”
“Did he leave a note?” I asked.
“I didn’t ask. She was upset, and I didn’t explain why I was calling, for obvious reasons. I’ll have to call back and get details.”
I leaned back against the counter and tried to breathe. The air had completely come out of me. That nice kid. Dead. Just like that.
“What does this mean?” I asked. “For my situation, I mean.”
“I don’t know,” Helene said. “I need to find out who called me this morning. It’s probably just a sick prank. Hopefully that’s all it is and this will be the end of it.”
“Helene?”
“What?”
“I’m scared.”
“You should be,” she said. And hung up the phone.
9
MY MEETING WITH LURCH BECKONED, whether my life was falling apart or not. I was determined to find out what had happened to my mother’s wedding ring. So I showered and got ready for my visit to Sutter Funeral Home.
What does one wear to meet with a funeral director? A suit? Something somber and conservative? I stared at my closet, mentally trying on outfits. I flirted with the idea of waltzing in wearing a wild little Bohemian number, just to freak him out, but decided in the end that I should work out my hostilities on my own time, not his. I finally pulled a pair of black pants off the hanger, found a blouse that didn’t need pressing, and threw it on.
Sutter Funeral Home is in the little town of Hillsboro, where my mom grew up. It’s about an hour south of Dallas.
I tried to clear my head on the drive, to steady myself, to tamp down the panic that was bubbling up inside me. I started by mentally cataloging my questions. I decided to go in chronological order.
First, and perhaps most intriguing, who was Peter Terry? The man obviously got around. He’d had some at least fleeting contact with both Gavin and Erik Zocci. He’d turned up in the dreams of both boys.
Was he someone they’d both managed to cross paths with, in some glancing, inconsequential way? And had they taken subliminal note of him, thus paving the way to their subconscious? Or was he, as Tony and Bob seemed to suggest, a spiritual being?
He was just strange-looking enough that if you saw him at the grocery store or something you would notice him, but not so strange that you would find yourself staring at him. The brain would take in, process, and spit out obvious stimuli—a loud, angry man, for instance—but someone like Peter Terry could sneak in unnoticed … unless you saw the gash.
The other issue was that I’d somehow ended up involved in both boys’ dreams. Zocci had told me about his dreams during therapy, and Gavin claimed I’d actually appeared in his. They both seemed credible to me. I believed them. It was too much of a stretch to be a coincidence.
Next question—the jewelry. I intended to make progress on that one by the end of the day. I was hoping Lurch would shed some light on the likelihood of my mother’s ring being stolen the day of the funeral, as Silverstein had suggested. Perhaps whoever took it had simply returned it out of guilt.
That didn’t explain the rest of the gifts that day at Barton Springs, however. All wrapped identically to the ring. Was the whole thing an elaborate ruse to distract from the ring’s return? That didn’t make any sense to me. The gifts had been carefully chosen and did, in fact, match the desires of their recipients. John Mulvaney had indeed expressed a desire for a new Day-timer, for instance. He’d reminded me of that the night he came to my house.
John Mulvaney. Another mess of unresolved questions. Who had written on his calendar, copying my handwriting precisely, suggesting we meet for supper? And how had he ended up with such a twisted version of that rather odd event?
The latter question was the only one so far I could answer. The man was an oddball. A misfit. Completely unable to process normal social cues. It would be natural for him to miss the boat entirely on what had transpired that night.
Moving on to the flies. What was that about? Odd as that battle had been, I was willing to chalk it up to bizarre coincidence. Maybe I had flies in my house. Maybe there was a little fly maternity ward somewhere that I didn’t know about, turning out big fat flies one by one.
The boiled eggs? I’d never studied the presence of smells in dreams, but it had to be a fairly common phenomenon. That one would be easy to research.
Erik Zocci. This was the kicker. Why would anyone make such a dreadful accusation against me, using the name of a former patient? A former dead patient. A former dead patient who had committed suicide.
And what was the suicide about? Had this boy been so haunted by the Peter Terry-like figure that he’d thrown himself off a twelfth-floor balcony? Surely there was more to it than that.
I resolved to do some digging to find out what had been going on in Erik Zocci’s life.
As I pondered this last item, I realized it was the one that was pressing the hardest on me.
As horrifying as suicide is, it is usually explainable, at least in hindsight. You could almost always retrace the steps of the person and find the path that led him to that terrible decision. It’s harder to spot in present time, of course. But often perfectly clear after the
fact.
That’s one reason suicide is such a cruel choice. It leaves the survivors with nothing but the certainty and guilt of hindsight.
I’d never had a patient commit suicide on my watch. The guilt I felt—though this young man had been in my care only briefly, a full year before he took his own life—was profound. Somehow, ludicrous as it looks in the light of day, I felt I should have prevented it. That I’d missed something toxic in this boy that had eaten him from the inside.
I felt like the physician who misses the tumor on the X-ray, only to find out a year later that the patient had succumbed to a treatable but virulent strain of cancer.
What had I missed? Why had this boy, haunted by Peter Terry, sought me out? Why had he abruptly ended therapy? Was he frustrated with me at the time because he felt I wasn’t helping him? Had I failed to listen to him? Had I dismissed something important? Had I been careless? Frivolous with his pain?
As I pulled off 1-35 onto the Hillsboro exit, I reached for my map, relieved to have something else to do with my mind. Erik Zocci, I knew, would haunt me as Peter Terry had haunted him. And my guilt would drive me until I either absolved myself of blame or made peace with my mistake. Neither would be possible until I found out what had happened to the boy.
Until then, I shoved my denial into place as I threw my truck into park and set a foot on the hot pavement of the Sutter Funeral Home parking lot.
Sutter Funeral Home was Proud to Be Family Owned and Operated. Since 1928, the sign said. Poor timing to start a business, surely I wondered how the funeral home business had survived the ’29 crash and the Depression of the ’30s. But then death didn’t respond to fluctuations in the economy. People were going to die either way.
Small town funeral homes are familiar territory for me. My mother’s side of the family, prolific and gnarled farm folk, had died off one by one in the past couple of decades. Great Aunt so-and-so had “passed,” my mother would say reverently, and we would all converge on some dinky Texas town.
A country funeral, usually in an unair-conditioned building, would be sparsely attended by surviving friends who would proclaim how very sad they were she was gone and how proud they were to have known her. Then we would spend the afternoon eating tuna casserole, three bean salad, and angel food cake, supplied by local Christian women.
When the Day of Evil Comes Page 6