The Pinocchio Syndrome

by David Zeman

  ————

  JUSTINE LAWRENCE turned off the little TV in Susan’s room and disconnected the 75-ohm antenna wire she had brought in to connect the TV to the cable for the broadcast. Susan watched in silence, sitting on the bed.

  Justine turned to Susan before leaving.

  “As I told you,” she said.

  Susan was silent, looking at the dark screen.

  “I recorded it,” Justine said. “The tape is still in the VCR. Watch it again if you like.” She thought for a moment. “Watch his eyes.”

  Susan said nothing.

  “I’m sorry,” Justine said.

  Then she left the room.

  Susan’s eyes followed Justine as she closed the door behind her. A look of desperate longing was on Susan’s face, as though Justine were the only friend she had left in a dark, indifferent world. But she said nothing.

  A long time passed before she rewound the tape to watch Michael’s speech again.

  She spent that time thinking.

  64

  —————

  Washington

  April 15

  DEATH OR LIFE.

  There were only two choices, Karen thought. That truth applies to everyone who has experienced something unbearable. You choose either death or life.

  Justine Lawrence was alive. The proof of that was her voice on Susan Campbell’s phone, and on the tape sent to the media to demand that Michael Campbell refuse the vice presidency.

  The amateur voiceprint technician Karen had consulted had no difficulty in matching the prints at dozens of points on the digital oscilloscope. Justine’s voice had changed greatly over the years, but its underlying profile remained the same.

  Justine had not died. She had lived. But where, and in what manner?

  There was one clue. Justine had been a young girl, profoundly traumatized and no doubt physically and mentally damaged, when she began her journey into the future. If she survived, that survival had to be marked by what had happened to her. The trauma gave her a direction.

  Karen thought about this. What kind of a life would a rape victim choose? How would she go about surviving?

  From what she knew of Justine, Karen saw her as a competent, responsible girl. True, her parents’ marital problems had affected her behavior as a young teenager. She was troubled. But she was a high achiever, a serious person. Under normal circumstances she would no doubt have finished college and gone on to some sort of professional career. A lawyer, a professor, a businesswoman.

  But fate had intervened to change that direction. Justine was a victim. Her life was in shambles. The proof of this was that she never saw her parents again. She was sufficiently damaged to never return home.

  Where did she go?

  Karen assumed that Justine must have suffered severe mental problems from what had happened to her. Very possibly she attempted suicide, perhaps multiple times. She did not succeed, though. She was alive today, as one of Susan Campbell’s captors.

  Karen postulated that Justine must have left a trail in some mental health clinic, state hospital, or counseling center. As a patient who had survived and gotten better, or as a chronic patient.

  Karen got online and searched out the mental health clinics and hospitals in the Boston area and around New England. She began canvassing the facilities by fax, phone, and e-mail, identifying herself as a reporter who was doing a story on female runaways and what had happened to them.

  The weak spot in her procedure immediately became clear to her. The mental health facilities refused to identify any of their patients, past or present. Confidentiality was a key part of their business, after all.

  Karen thought the matter over. It would be both time consuming and futile to try getting mental health people to provide information that they didn’t want to reveal. Even the police would face a brick wall in such an inquiry.

  But there was another possibility. Suppose Justine pulled herself together. Permanently damaged, sexually and emotionally, she survived. She lived an independent adult life. Not a normal one, perhaps. A life that led through unknown twists and turns to the abduction of Susan Campbell.

  What about those intervening years? Where did Justine go, and what did she do?

  Connect the dots,Karen thought.

  It was worthwhile to postulate that Justine became, at least for a while, a mental health professional, either as a social worker, a tech, a nurse, or a psychologist or psychiatrist. After all, the best remedy for a person with ineradicable scars is to help other people who are in pain. If Justine was the kind of person Karen thought she was, she might have left a trail in the mental health field as a counselor.

  Karen took the gamble. She began querying clinics and hospitals not about a former patient, but about a former staff member. A social worker, a volunteer, a mental health tech, even an orderly. She identified herself as a family member who needed to inform Justine Lawrence of the sad news that her mother had died. As the only surviving child, Justine had to sign some papers in order for the mother to be buried, Karen said.

  At first her search led to nothing. Then it occurred to her that she was wrong to limit herself to the New England area. Since Justine had suffered her trauma in Boston, she probably would have put as much distance between herself and that locale as possible. Her breakdown, if it had occurred, and her ultimate rehabilitation would have occurred elsewhere.

  Karen extended her search to the entire country and to Canada. The job was far too big for her to handle alone, so she called a canvassing service her editor had used in the past and had them do the legwork.

  For two days nothing happened. Karen concentrated on other things. At the back of her mind was the disturbing thought that the trail she was following would lead nowhere.

  But it turned out Karen had guessed right.

  The canvassing service got an e-mail from a counseling clinic in Savannah, Georgia. The e-mail was signed by the clinic’s director, a clinical psychologist named Marie Saylor, who thought she might have crossed paths with Justine Lawrence. Karen called the woman an hour after the arrival of the e-mail.

  “I think I know the woman you’re looking for,” Dr. Saylor said. “She used a different name, but she was the right age. I was a psychiatric social worker at the time, at a clinic in Charleston.”

  “What name did she use?”

  “Theresa. Theresa Manuel. I knew her when she was about eighteen. I would never have connected her with your subject if you hadn’t included the photograph with your query. The picture you sent was taken when she was younger, but I recognized her. That’s Theresa.”

  “You knew her as a counselor?” Karen asked.

  “It’s more complicated than that. She was a patient. She came to us after attempting suicide in a bus station by cutting her wrists. I met her in the hospital. She had been raped. Gang-raped, I believe. When she was released she came to our clinic. She was still terribly depressed and suicidal, but we kept her going until she began to improve. I had a lot of counseling sessions with her, and Dr. Henley, our director, did too.”

  “Where can I find Dr. Henley?” Karen asked.

  “I’m afraid you can’t. She died of cancer a few years back.”

  Karen suppressed a sigh. “Okay,” she said. “What else can you tell me?”

  “Theresa—I mean Justine—was a very strong girl. She improved steadily and told me she wanted to work as a counselor. She completed her GED while she was with us, and later got a master’s in counseling. She was very good. Intelligent, committed, very understanding and empathetic with our young female patients. I was proud of her. She was a special person to me. When I got married and left the clinic I was sorry to leave her.”

  “You left the clinic?” Karen asked.

  “Yes. We moved to Atlanta, then to Savannah. My husband is a tax attorney. I ended up getting a Ph.D. in psychology and working in other clinics, until I accepted the directorship here.”

  “Did you stay in touch with Justine?�
�� Karen asked.

  “Loosely, yes. I called her a few times to see how she was doing. Then the clinic closed down for lack of funding. I lost touch with Theresa—Justine—after that. I pretty much gave her up. I did hear from her once, a few years later. There was an article inNewsweek about mental health professionals, and they included a brief quote from me along with the fact that I was in Savannah. I got a card from Theresa telling me that she had enjoyed the article and wished me well.”

  “Where was the card from?” Karen asked.

  “There was no return address. If there had been I would have written back to Theresa. As I say, she was quite special to me.”

  “And you never heard from her after that?”

  “That’s right. Never.”

  “Did you ever try looking her up in the directories of mental health professionals?”

  “Yes, I did. No luck.”

  “How long ago was it that you got this card from her?”

  “About six years ago.”

  Karen thought for a moment.

  “Did you worry that she might try suicide again?” she asked.

  “Frankly, yes.” The other woman sounded worried. “She was a virgin at the time of the rape, she told me. She was very disturbed sexually. I don’t think she ever had a sexual relationship after the episode. Not while I knew her anyway. There was a hopelessness in her, despite her effectiveness as a counselor. Yes, I always worried about Terry.”

  Karen said, “I certainly wish I could find her.”

  “You know, it occurs to me that I might have saved the card she sent. I have a couple of old shoeboxes where I keep old cards and letters. They’re not organized in any way; I just throw in anything that has some personal meaning or value. Why don’t I sort through them tonight? If I find the card I’ll call you.”

  “I would appreciate that very much. Thank you for your time.”

  Karen hung up expecting little from Marie Saylor. But late that night she received a call from her.

  “I found the card,” the psychologist said. “I remember noticing the postmark, because I was worried about Terry and wondered where she might have gone and what she was doing.”

  “And where was it postmarked?” Karen asked.

  “St. Louis. I remember it very clearly, because the stamp she used had a picture of the Arch in St. Louis.”

  65

  —————

  Arlington, Virginia

  April 15

  LESLIE WAS at her health club, finishing a hard thirty-five-minute workout on the StairMaster.

  The machine was in a row of ten, all occupied by sweating, breathless women who were driving themselves almost beyond their limits. Of the ten, Leslie was by far the most attractive, and she knew it. Her long hair was tied back in a ponytail. She wore spandex bike shorts over a leotard and white running shoes. In the mirror along the wall she had seen herself ogled by a dozen joggers. As usual, the women devoured her with their eyes even more hungrily than the men. It was envy, she knew, and not sexual desire. Women came here in the frustrating attempt to mold their bodies to a fantasy. Leslie was that fantasy in the flesh.

  She was out of breath and covered with perspiration when she got off. She wiped the machine with her towel and took a long, slow walk around the track, ignoring the joggers who shot past her. Then she went to the locker room, stripped, wrapped a towel around herself and entered the women’s sauna.

  She would weigh herself tomorrow morning as usual. If she was above 115 she would eat nothing but salad and come back here for another long workout.

  The TV in the sauna was set to CNN. The big news was that Secretary of the Interior Tom Palleschi had died. Though government spokesmen denied hotly that Palleschi was a victim of the Pinocchio Syndrome, polls showed that fewer than twenty-five percent of the American people accepted the government’s story.

  Palleschi’s death threw a new light on Michael Campbell’s refusal to give in to the demand made by his wife’s captors. With Palleschi dead, Michael was a key to the stability of the administration—what remained of it, anyway. Yet Michael’s nomination was now clouded by tragic circumstances. If he became vice president, it might be at the cost of his wife’s life.

  CNN showed the same piece of file tape of Susan that it had been showing since the beginning: a shot of Susan smiling a bit bemusedly onThe Oprah Winfrey Show as Oprah laughed aloud at something Susan had said. As for Michael, he was shown sitting at the desk in his Senate office, where he had made his fateful response to the terrorists.

  Leslie had not seen Michael in all this time, or heard a word from him. She was not offended by this; she understood that he was in a terrible situation, and no doubt surrounded by law enforcement and intelligence people. He could not make a phone call without being monitored in some way.

  Leslie wished she could comfort him. Over the years she had come to feel that this was her body’s main function as far as Michael was concerned: comfort, succor. Often she would lie for long minutes with his head on her breast, stroking his hair in silence. He was like a child who has lost his mother, and Leslie the substitute for that lost mother.

  The night before Susan’s disappearance Leslie had shared Michael’s bed in a discreet San Diego hotel. Earlier in the evening she went to the War Memorial to hear his speech on the environment. She had found herself glancing around anxiously for suspicious-looking people in the crowd. Michael looked so vulnerable up on that platform. Like a sitting duck.

  But Leslie, like everyone else, had misdirected her anxiety. It turned out that Susan Campbell, not Michael, was the one in danger.

  Leslie had been surprised when Michael refused the abductors’ demand. She knew how much he loved Susan, how much he prized her. She fully expected that he would take himself out of the running and let the White House find another sucker. He would not let his wife die for the sake of politics.

  Michael was passionately devoted to Susan. True, there was something ever so slightly official or formal about his veneration for her. As though she were someone to whom he dedicated himself as a faithful protector, rather than someone with whom he was intimate. Absent from his remarks about her was a husband’s easygoing irony about his wife’s weaknesses or peculiarities. He never criticized her at all. Some would see this attitude as a lack of real affection.

  Leslie chalked it up to Michael’s sexual unhappiness with Susan. His intense erotic need for Leslie left no doubt that he was not getting sexual satisfaction at home. Not that this was so unusual for a Washington husband—or for any husband. But with Michael the lack seemed more deep, more painful.

  Sometimes Michael would come to Leslie with a look of such pent-up hunger in his eyes that she took pity on him and pulled him quickly into her bed. He made love with furious energy, and sometimes came too soon. She did not mind this. She enjoyed being wanted, she liked the privilege of being the woman who made him happy.

  At other times, when he was less famished, he was very considerate of Leslie’s own needs. He would touch and kiss her in all her favorite places, knowing from the rhythm of her sighs how excited she was becoming. He would enter her gently and stroke her with himself until her sex was aflame. On these occasions she rarely had fewer than three or four orgasms.

  He was in every way a fine lover. Tender, considerate, patient. Not at all like most of the men she had known, who took their pleasure so peremptorily that they might be eating or urinating rather than fucking. Michael never forgot the fact that he was with a woman who had feelings of her own.

  The only remarkable or unusual thing about her sexual history with him was the blindfold.

  She had been his lover for about two months when he first brought it up. She was not shy about sexual kinks. She had done a few unusual things in her time. She was surprised when what he suggested was so innocent. He simply wanted her to put a blindfold on him and hide, naked, while he searched for her.

  “If it’s too stupid, forget it,” he had said. He explained
that the request had to do with a thing that had happened in his childhood. He had played the game with some little girl friends when he was nine or ten years old, and it had left a lasting impression on him.

  Leslie went along. She put the blindfold on him and hid in a corner, watching as he moved slowly around the apartment or hotel room, searching for her. Always she was naked; at first he kept his clothes on, but over time he began to play the game naked too. She found herself turned on by the sight of him moving slowly toward her, his penis erect, his fingers feeling for her in the silence. Often by the time he actually touched her she was aroused herself, hot to get into bed as quickly as possible.

  Eventually the game became a favorite form of foreplay, especially when they were not pressed for time. Michael was decidedly more ardent as a lover when they played it. Leslie did not begrudge him this innocent little kink.

  She missed him now. Her body needed him. She had not had sex since her last time with him. In her own way she felt she was keeping a vigil too.

  Leslie knew that his decision not to trade the vice presidency for Susan’s return must have cost him a great deal. Frankly, she would not have thought him capable of it. Had the president influenced him? Or his father? Or had he made the decision based on his own convictions?

  She shrugged, pulling the moist towel tighter around her breasts. Michael must have had a good reason.

  Michael never did anything without a good reason.

  66

  —————

  JUSTINE LAWRENCE had abandoned her assumed name of Theresa Manuel when she worked as a mental health counselor at the Webster Groves Mental Health Clinic in St. Louis. She was using the name Susan Laurents.

  She spent three years at the clinic, distinguishing herself as a professional and making a lasting impression on her patients and colleagues as a troubled, sad, certainly brilliant person. By now those who knew her were characterizing her as a prematurely aged young woman who looked at least ten years older than her age. Her face was lined, her skin sallow. The scars at her wrists told the story of her tortured emotional life. But she had a melancholy strength that impressed all those who crossed her path.