by David Zeman
“You’re turning a coincidence into a conspiracy,” Kraig said. “I hear you’re famous for that.”
Karen did not reply.
“So Goss was in Boston at the time,” Kraig said. “And I was in Boston. Does that make Goss and me co-conspirators?”
“No one is telling your wife to askyou what happened at Harvard,” Karen rejoined.
“I’m not married,” Kraig corrected her.
There was a silence.
“Listen,” Karen said. “The crank on Susan Campbell’s phone told Susan that when the selection process was over, Michael Campbell would be the president’s choice. That idea seemed incredible at the time. But consider what’s happened since. Palleschi got sick. Stillman was murdered. Michael was in fact selected. And look what’s happened since his nomination: the spread of the Pinocchio Syndrome in America has stopped. And the president’s stock has gone up dramatically. Colin Goss has been losing ground in the polls.”
“So what are you saying?” Kraig asked. “That Goss abducted Susan Campbell in order to slow Michael’s momentum?” He looked at Karen. “Aren’t you getting your conspirators mixed up? If Goss was in league with Michael back at Harvard, why would he hurt Michael by abducting his wife?”
Karen chewed her lip nervously. “I haven’t got that figured out yet. I’m trying to put it together.”
“Besides,” Kraig said, “no man on earth hates Mike Campbell more than Colin Goss. Have you heard the way Goss’s spokesmen talk about Michael? They make him sound like a cross between Mick Jagger and Charles Manson.”
It was true. As Michael had predicted, the Goss forces were accusing him of being wet behind the ears, an ambitious punk whose selection proved how desperate the president and his administration were.Why send a boy to do a man’s job? Such was the refrain of the Goss ads.
Karen had no response to this.
“Look, Karen.” Kraig leaned forward. “Someone has got Susan Campbell. I have to find her. If you have evidence that will tell me where to look, I want you to share it. If all you have is imaginary skeletons in the closet from fifteen years ago, you can keep that to yourself. We’re fighting the clock here.”
Karen looked at Kraig. She knew he wasn’t hearing her. He belonged to that officialdom, that establishment, which believes in the sanity of the world. She could never convince him of something as sinister as what was in her mind. Not without proof.
“Okay,” she said. “I hope you find her in time.”
“So do I,” Kraig said.
She stood up to leave. Her slim arms looked pale and almost ghostlike in the dim light of the living room. Kraig watched her toss her hair over her shoulder. It must have been washed today or tonight. It looked fresh and fluffy. He could no longer deny that he was strongly attracted to her.
She turned at the door to look at him. “So you were there that whole year,” she said. “Were you on the scene when Susan first met Michael?”
“Yes,” Kraig said. “A friend of hers introduced her to him before his second operation. He introduced Susan to me.”
“What did she look like then?” Karen asked.
“Young. Pretty.” Kraig shrugged.
“Neurotic?” Karen asked.
“I wouldn’t say so. Sensitive.”
“Did you like her?”
“Sure I liked her.”
“Were they sleeping together then?” Karen asked. “Before the surgery, I mean.”
Kraig shrugged. “I doubt it. It was her visits during his convalescence that made them close. It’s possible, I suppose, that they were intimate even before the operation. I wouldn’t know.”
“Why not?” Karen asked. “You were his closest friend, weren’t you?”
“Sure. But you don’t necessarily tell your best friend who you’re sleeping with.”
“So there are things even a best friend wouldn’t know,” Karen said. “Right?”
Kraig didn’t answer.
Karen gave him a last searching look as he let her out.
53
—————
ON HER fourth day in captivity Susan had her first serious conversation with her captor.
The woman came in to remove Susan’s lunch tray as usual. But today she remained to talk.
“Well,” she said. “Are you ready to hear the truth?”
Susan reddened. She did not like being lectured by a kidnapper.
“I know the truth already,” she said.
“What truth do you know?” the woman asked.
“My husband is a courageous man who loves his country,” Susan said. “He has more physical courage than anyone I’ve ever met. The pain he endured from the two operations on his back would have turned any normal man into an invalid. He never wanted notoriety, but he has lived with it for all these years because he wants to serve his country.”
The woman nodded. “And as a husband?”
“Michael is a loving husband,” Susan said. “A devoted husband. He has always respected my feelings. He loves me.”
“Why don’t you have any children?” the woman asked.
Susan’s face flushed again. “I blame myself for that.”
“Does he satisfy you sexually?”
“That’s none of your business.”
The woman was watching Susan closely. Her gaze was penetrating. Avoiding it, Susan noticed that the woman’s arms were bare today. The traces of small burns, cigarette burns perhaps, were visible on both arms.
“And as a son?” the woman asked.
“He is the son of a powerful, somewhat domineering father,” Susan said. “A father who has made life difficult for his other two children. But Michael is strong. He has a strength of personality to match that of his father. Greater, in fact. He wouldn’t be bullied by Judd. He stood up to him from the beginning. And I think Judd respects him for it. Michael commands respect.”
“But they see eye to eye about his political career?” the woman asked.
“No, not really,” Susan replied. “For one thing, Judd’s politics are much more conservative than Michael’s. For another thing, Judd has always pushed Michael to be more ambitious than he is naturally. I think this is because Judd was always ambitious for himself. He’s a winner. He wants Michael to be a winner. Michael understands this, but he refuses to be ruled by Judd. Michael is his own man, and Judd has learned to respect that. Michael has backbone.”
The reference to “backbone” was a Campbell family joke. It was ironic that Michael, whose spine was distorted by disease, should be the one in the family with the strongest will.
“Yet Michael is a nominee for the vice presidency at a tender age,” the other woman observed. “Those who oppose him point out that fact. He is too young. Why do you say he has resisted his father’s pushing?”
“He has. He did. It wasn’t Judd who put him in this position.”
“Who was it, then?” The woman’s eyebrow was raised.
Susan needed a moment to find the right word. “It was fate.”
“Ah.” The woman smiled. “I understand.”
“I don’t think you do,” Susan said. “If you did you wouldn’t be trying to stop him from doing what his country needs him to do at this moment.”
The woman studied Susan for a moment.
“Susan—do you mind if I call you Susan?”
Susan said nothing.
“Susan, are you familiar with the parable of the elephant?” the woman asked.
“Elephant?” Susan replied. “I’m not sure.”
“Two blind men are holding parts of an elephant. One is holding the tail, the other the trunk. They need to figure out between them what animal they are holding. One man thinks the animal is very thin. The other thinks the animal is large and thick and makes a trumpeting noise. Between them they can’t arrive at a picture of the real animal. Each of them knows too small a part.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that,” Susan said. “What about it?”
“Sometimes the
truth eludes us because we see only a part of it. You’ve been dealing with the trunk, Susan. You’ve never seen the tail. You’ve never seen the whole Michael Campbell.”
Susan shook her head. “You’re wrong,” she said. “I know him better than anyone alive.”
There was a silence. The strange inner glare in the other woman’s eyes softened.
“I’d like you to call me Justine,” the woman said. “It’s not fair for me to know your name when you don’t know mine.”
Susan silently weighed the sound of the name. It had an interesting dignity that seemed suited to this woman. Prematurely aged by some sort of suffering perhaps beyond anything Susan had ever known, she looked like a survivor. Her external scars seemed to echo invisible ones too terrible to be seen.
“All right,” Susan said. She hoped her assent would create a touch of sympathy on her captor’s part. But she stopped short of saying the name out loud.
“For obvious reasons,” Justine said, “you have difficulty accepting the idea that your husband is evil. I’m here to convince you. Why? Because when the time comes, you’re going to have to carry the ball.”
“What do you mean, carry the ball?” Susan asked. “I would never do anything to hurt Michael. You might as well know that now.”
There was a silence. Justine looked thoughtful.
“Michael’s mother committed suicide, didn’t she?” she asked.
Susan nodded. Despite herself she felt that there was something evasive in her nod.
“The reason was never clear, was it?” Justine asked.
Susan thought for a moment. “I once heard Judd say that Margery had problems with depression. He said she had trouble growing old gracefully.”
“And you believed that?”
Susan chewed her lip nervously. “Why shouldn’t I have believed it?”
Justine studied Susan’s face.
“During your courtship with Michael,” she said, “you spent a lot of time together, didn’t you?”
“Yes. At first he was bedridden. I sat and talked to him. Sometimes all evening. Afterward we used to study together. I helped him train for the Olympics. I think I spent more time with him than anyone else.”
“But every week or ten days, Michael left you for a whole day or more, didn’t he?” Justine asked.
Susan reddened slightly. “Yes, that’s true.”
“Where did he go?”
“He went to Provincetown to see Father Griffin,” Susan said.
“Who is Father Griffin?”
“He was Michael’s favorite teacher in the school he attended as a boy. He had to retire when he got multiple sclerosis. Michael would go and see him every ten days or so and spend the night. He considered Father Griffin a sort of surrogate father and spiritual advisor. He always called him his favorite adult.”
“Was Judd Campbell jealous of this relationship with the priest?” Justine asked.
Susan pondered this. “A little bit, perhaps. Judd was in some ways a difficult father, and he recognized that Michael needed some relief from him. He also realized that Father Griffin taught Michael a more gentle philosophy. Judd was so demanding . . . But on the whole I think Judd dismissed the relationship as something Michael was doing for the sake of his mother. His mother was Catholic, you see, and it was because of her that Michael had gone to a Catholic school as a young boy.”
“Did you ever meet Father Griffin?” Justine asked.
“No, but I saw pictures of him. And I saw the pictures he painted of Michael. He was an amateur painter, pretty talented, until his illness made it impossible for him to hold a brush.”
Justine was looking at Susan.
“But you never met him.”
“No.”
“Even when you were getting engaged to Michael, he never took you to Provincetown to meet his favorite adult?”
Susan reddened. “No. He didn’t. Why should he have?”
“Wouldn’t it have been the normal thing to do?” Justine asked. “Since he admired the priest, wouldn’t he have wanted to show you off to him? Wouldn’t he have wanted to ask his approval of your relationship, at least as a sign of respect?”
Susan thought for a moment. “Father Griffin was an invalid. He hated to have people see him in his weakened state. He was too embarrassed by his illness.”
“It was Michael who told you this?”
“Yes.”
Justine gave Susan a look of pity and understanding.
“Susan, there never was a Father Griffin.”
Susan felt anger surge within her.
“What do you mean by that?” she cried. “Of course there was. I even talked to him on the phone once.”
Justine shook her head. “You talked to a man on the phone. It was not Father Griffin. There is no Father Griffin. There never was.”
There was a silence.
Justine stood up. “I could prove it to you today,” she said. “But you wouldn’t believe it. Not even if it was documented. You’re not ready yet.” She smiled at Susan. “So, I’ll give you more time.”
“Wait,” Susan said.
Justine paused at the door. Her left arm hung at her side, marked by the small burns that looked like stigmata in the dim light.
“Yes?”
The roar of a large plane taking off nearby created a pause in which Susan fought to find words for what she was feeling.
“I don’t believe you,” she said. She wanted it to sound like a challenge. But it came out sounding like a plea.
Nodding understandingly, Justine went out and locked the door behind her.
54
—————
Baltimore
April 8
JOE KRAIG parked his sedan in front of a large house on North Charles Street in Baltimore. The neighborhood was venerable, the house well kept up. It had old-fashioned high windows, ornate gables, and magnolia trees in the yard. The morning traffic was not particularly heavy. The warm Baltimore sun gave the city a balmy air despite the brown lawns and slushy streets.
Kraig sat in the waiting room looking at the stack of magazines on the coffee table, without making a move to pick one up.
After a few minutes a small gray-haired woman opened an inner door and gave Kraig a controlled smile. “Mr. Kraig? Come on in.”
Kraig followed the woman into a relatively large room with tall windows and hanging plants. She sat behind a desk and motioned Kraig to an armchair beside which a box of Kleenex sat on a small table. In a corner of the room was a leather couch with a headrest at one end.
“Doctor, thank you for seeing me,” Kraig said.
“What can I do for you?” The woman placed her hands on the table. She had the deliberate calm and steady eyes of her profession.
“I won’t waste your time, Doctor,” Kraig said. “Susan Campbell was your patient. We know that. It wasn’t hard to trace her here. She made phone calls to this number. It’s long distance from Washington, so they appeared on her phone bill. I assume she paid you in cash, since there are no payments to you on her checking account or credit cards. It’s understandable, of course. A woman in her position would not want it publicly known that she was seeing a psychiatrist.”
The doctor said nothing, but regarded Kraig steadily.
“I don’t want to pry into Mrs. Campbell’s private life, Doctor,” Kraig said. “But as you know, the situation is serious. Her life could be in danger. I need for you to tell me anything you know that might help us get her back.”
The doctor looked thoughtful. “Mr. Kraig—”
“Agent Kraig. I’m a federal agent, Doctor, assigned to investigate Mrs. Campbell’s disappearance.”
“Agent Kraig, then.” The doctor gave Kraig a thin smile. “I can’t violate the confidence of a patient.”
Her voice bore the hint of an indeterminate European accent. Kraig already knew she was a psychoanalyst, trained in Vienna. His research into her background had revealed that she was highly regarded in her p
rofession, with all the usual honors and fellowships. She taught at Johns Hopkins and had published several books on psychotherapy. She had patients from the best families in the Baltimore–Washington area. She would not be intimidated by a federal agent’s badge.
“Did she use her real name when she came here?” Kraig asked.
“I’m afraid I can’t discuss my patients with you, Agent Kraig,” the doctor said.
Kraig sighed.
“Doctor, let me explain something to you. Susan Campbell left home under her own power. She drove to her cottage at Green Lake in Pennsylvania. We know the cottage was opened. She lit a fire, started a pot of tea, things like that. Then she disappeared. May I tell you something in confidence?”
The doctor looked uncertain. Then she nodded. “Everything that is said in this office is confidential.”
“The evidence we found in the cottage was consistent with abduction,” Kraig said. “However, there are grounds for the possibility that Mrs. Campbell committed suicide. Also for the possibility that she ran away, using the cottage as her point of departure. I want to get her home safe, Doctor. The best way to accomplish that is to avoid wasting time on scenarios that didn’t happen. I want you to help me in this. Help me narrow down the possibilities.”
The doctor was thoughtful.
“I can’t violate the confidence of one of my patients, Agent Kraig.”
“Even if it’s a matter of life and death?” Kraig asked.
The doctor turned to look out the side window at the pleasant wisteria arbor in the yard. The arbor had been planted there so that her patients would have something to look at from the office. Over the years she had come to use the twisted wisteria branches as a metaphor in her therapy.
“The branches have twisted to accommodate the obstacle of the wood frame,” she told her patients. “If you remove the frame, the branches will begin to grow straight. But they will always bear the trace of the twist caused by the obstacle. This is the way our character works. Now that our childhood stresses and conflicts are behind us, we are free to grow in any direction we like. We will always bear the trace of those early twists and turns, but they need not determine the direction our future will take. The purpose of therapy is to teach the branches that the obstacle is gone.”