Newly reconciled, still tense and wary with each other, they had just decided to move from the Deep South back to Chicago. To uproot themselves, again, for the third time in their marriage. He knew some couples moved more often. Executives who were transferred every three or four years as a matter of course, and military and diplomatic types. Knowing this made the process no easier, no less formidable.
All of which made him deeply skeptical about another child. But Sharon had been adamant. An only child herself, she didn’t want the same fate to fall on Peter. It was more than that, though. A woman not given to melodramatic outbursts, she told him the desire for another child was like a hunger that gnawed at her day and night. A woman not given to imploring, she implored him.
Grudgingly and full of qualms, he’d acquiesced. The result had been Sarah, born two weeks before his forty-fourth birthday. He shuddered at the thought that they might not have had her. And he felt an abiding gratitude to Sharon, for her insistence that they have another child, grateful for her rock-solid stubbornness.
CHAPTER XII
T HAT MONDAY, AT 9:00 A.M. SHARP, Dr. Stanley Celinsky convened the monthly staff meeting at GCFI. Dr. Celinsky, a heavyset man of sixty-eight, served as the facility’s only full-time psychiatrist (Gottlieb and the three others were part-timers). He’d attained a measure of local prominence as a forensic psychiatrist after serving as an expert witness in several well-publicized cases of twenty-five years ago. Around the same time, he’d written a few professional articles. But he held his present job mainly through the vagaries of local politics. A sister had married an alderman, a nephew served a third term as state senator. The Cook County machine was less than it had been in the heyday of the first Mayor Daley, but Chicago remained a city where clout spoke with a booming voice. Stanley Celinsky, a burnt-out case who still smoked a daily pack of Camels despite two heart attacks, whose mouthful of Tic-Tacs failed to hide his breakfast double vodka, held an iron grip on his sinecure.
Gottlieb glanced around at his fellow attendees. Besides Celinsky and him, the only other psychiatrist there was Regina Cruz, a woman in her early forties but looking a good deal younger, with dark flashing eyes and black hair barely flecked with gray. She chatted with Marie Donatello, the director of nursing. A sad-eyed brunette, Marie was two or three years Regina’s junior. Dwight Sanderson had parked himself across from her. Two other RNs flanked him on either side. Behind them, in a row against the wall, sat the secretaries, aides, and ward clerks.
On Gottlieb’s immediate left was Norma Caldwell. Next to her sat another social worker, Ezra Hill, an African American in his early forties, professorial and bespectacled, as sedate as Sanderson was flamboyant. On Gottlieb’s right, a bit removed from the others, was Howard Pincus, a smarmy man with a bad toupee and a glistening mustache. Pincus held two masters, one in psychology, another in public administration. His official position was Associate Director for Medical and Legal Affairs, but he referred to himself, with folksy self-disparagement, as “the liaison guy.” He made frequent calls to the police depart-ment and the DA’s office but his real job, suspected Gottlieb, consisted of reporting back to the Mayor. Dwight harbored the same suspicion. “He’s supposed to tell Hizzoner when that mo’-fo’ Celinsky finally goes into DTs.”
If you watched the principals file into the conference room, smiling at each other and drinking coffee and exchanging banalities about the weather, you’d be unlikely to pick up on their jockeying for position, their tendency to backstab, and their abiding dislike and distrust for one another. For Gottlieb, whose professional background consisted mainly of private practice and who wasn’t much of a political animal to begin with, it had taken him time to learn the new terrain. To learn, for instance, that Marie Donatello and Ezra Hill could barely stand being in the same room together as a result of an affair that ended badly when Hill went back to his wife after a year-long hiatus. To learn that Howard Pincus had tried to get Dr. Cruz fired because she hadn’t testified to the DA’s liking in a murder case, and that she had tried to get him fired because of unwelcome sexual advances. To learn that everyone took potshots at Dr. Celinsky behind his back, writing him off as a drunken toady has-been.
The meeting’s format never varied. A summary of recent admissions and discharges. Noteworthy incidents, especially patients’ attacks on staff and each other, and their destruction of property. Reports from committees and subcommittees. Finally, a discussion of matters of general interest. In theory this provided an open forum, a chance for anyone to bring up any-
thing. In practice it was used to keep underlings apprised of dictates from above.
Gottlieb made it through these gatherings on autopilot. He’d perfected the technique of keeping part of an ear tuned to subjects of possible interest to him while the rest of his mind went off on fifty tangents. This particular meeting promised to be no better or worse than usual, but attendance was down because of summer vacations. He hoped it augured well for brevity.
Marie Donatello gave the opening statement “There’ve been thirteen admissions and nine discharges since our last meeting,” she summarized. One of the discharged patients, HIV-positive with AIDS dementia, had been referred to Cook County Neurology. They’d remanded another discharged patient to federal court after he’d been restored to competence. The youngest admission was seventeen, the oldest sixty-six. Gottlieb found himself caught up in the plight of the seventeen-year-old. What must it be like, he wondered, to come here at such an age, still more boy than man? What must it be like to find yourself amidst the hearers of voices who ordered them to rape and kill, and the viewers of apocalyptic visions, and the eaters of their own shit? To find yourself among the worst permutations of the insane, the perverse and the predatory.
Marie handed the meeting over to Dwight Sanderson and another nursing supervisor, Wanda Jaworski, whose tiny pale blue eyes were almost lost behind her huge thick granny glasses. They split up the reading of the incident reports. Among the highlights: one patient tried to carve a verse of Scripture on his forearm with the sharpened end of a toothbrush. Another kicked a fellow patient in the instep, full force, for no obvious reason or provocation. (The victim’s X-rays came back negative; his wound had been dressed and his ankle wrapped, no need for an outside orthopedic consult.) Another, apparently bored, dismantled the head of the overhead sprinkler in his room. The architects and security experts who’d designed the place had assured them that this was impossible, but patients accomplished it at least once every few months.
In fact, it had been a quiet couple of weeks by GCFI standards. No serious suicide attempts, no assaults on staff, no fights among the patients, at least no fights that threatened life or limb. No escape attempts. Almost like a real hospital, mused Gottlieb.
Only three brief reports from the committees, one of them delivered by Norma, who chaired the social subcommittee. They’d arranged an outing for September, a White Sox game. Family members and friends welcome, formal posting to follow, deadline for signing up was August 5. Gottlieb checked his watch furtively. They were sailing right along; it was only 9:25 a.m. With luck they’d be finished in another twenty minutes, maybe even fifteen.
Celinsky brought up matters of general interest. Item one: someone from Personnel would host a forum on health-care benefits for salaried employees the week after next, explaining a new managed-care plan. (“Is it true we gonna get a whole overnight stay for a heart transplant?” Dwight broke in.) Item two: because of vacations, and fewer staff to bring patients to and from the visiting rooms, there’d be a cutback in visiting hours until Labor Day. Visits would also be staggered, depending on the housing units. Celinsky spoke in a droning mumble. Hard enough for Gottlieb to pay attention to him most of the time. Today it was out of the question.
His mind wandered to Hitler’s Willing Executioners, as fascinating as it was horrific. After dinner with the Edelsteins, he’d read it until two in the morning. He recalled an incident: seven hundred Polish Jews were forced
into a barricaded synagogue, subsequently set ablaze. A cordon of Germans with machine guns prevented escapees. “It’s a nice little fire. It’s great fun,” proclaimed one of them. The book made him think of Cassandra, whom he’d begun to regard with something close to awe. How could she give over her professional life to the study of such material and keep sane? He realized, though, that she might ask him the same question.
Celinsky pushed his chair back from the table and folded his arms on his broad lap, his signal that the meeting neared its end. “All right, does anyone have anything else?”
Howard Pincus flashed his trademark smarmy smile and spoke for the first time. “Well, yes, there’s something I’d like to bring up, concerning James Shannon.” Gottlieb became attentive in a flash.
“Yeah, what about him?” asked Celinsky.
“There’s a lot of interest in him downtown. There’s a lot of public pressure to, uh, send him back to jail and get on with the case.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” said Gottlieb, “but they had no idea what to do with him in jail. He didn’t talk, he responded to no one, he gave every indication of having a serious mental illness. Which is why they sent him to us in the first place.”
“Well, yes, of course, but that was a month ago—”
“Shee-it!” Dwight interrupted, making use of his status as the resident free spirit. He was like the court jesters of five hundred or a thousand years ago; he could say what he pleased, and what most of the others thought, with impunity. To a point.
“Crazy bastard kills his daughter for no apparent reason, and then he don’t say a word for two weeks,” Dwight went on, “and now they’re all over us like fleas on a hound dawg ’cause it’s been a whole month, and we don’t have him back in tiptop shape yet!”
Pincus’s face reddened. “No one’s all over us, Mr. Sanderson. But this is an important case, as I’m sure you’re aware, and passions are running high and all that. There’s some, uh, concern that he’s using his stay here to avoid a correctional setting.”
“This is a correctional setting,” Regina Cruz informed him frostily. “It just happens to be a hospital as well.”
“You know that, I know that, but the public doesn’t. There
are people who think this place is a Club Med, compared to jail or prison.”
Dwight again: “Never heard of no Club Med where they lock the guests up twenty-two hours a day. Where they put ’em in four-point restraints if they get outta hand.”
Pincus fought to keep an even tone. “I’m not saying that’s an accurate impression, but it’s the impression nonetheless.”
“Let’s review the facts, Mr. Pincus,” said Gottlieb softly. “First, his behavior after his arrest led police and correctional authorities to suspect that he was seriously ill. Second, he gave every indication that he was incompetent to stand trial in what’s apt to be a capital case. Given his offense, and its possible consequences, it would seem to everyone’s advantage that he receives as thorough a workup as possible. Furthermore, I think we could agree that he’s entitled to it. “
Pincus played with his mustache. “Just out of curiosity, Dr. Gottlieb, do you think he’s still incompetent? That is, assuming he was incompetent in the first place.”
“I’d rather not comment until our workup has been completed.”
“I understand, but, uh, which way do you think the evidence is pointing now?” Pincus’s tone had a raspy insistence to it. The rasp belied his fake-diffidence and too-frequent smiles.
Gottlieb had played this game before. He’d found the broken record ploy most useful. “I’d rather not comment until our workup has been completed,” he said again. Celinsky’s cue to mediate.
“I think Hal’s right to hold off on an opinion while the workup’s still in progress.” He turned to Gottlieb. “But of course you’ll keep us informed about any important new developments?” Unclear just whom he meant by us.
“Of course.”
“All right. Anything else?” No one responded. “Meeting’s adjourned then.”
Gottlieb checked his watch again—9:42 a.m. Not bad; these
meetings could drag on for well over an hour. Not bad at all.
He spent the rest of the morning seeing patients, writing orders, dictating progress notes, and conferring with Dwight and Norma. From time to time, he retrieved and answered messages from his office. It was nearly one, after lunch, before he had an iota of free time. Not much, but time enough to make the two phone calls on his mind.
“Hello?” Cassandra’s tone was brisk but pleasant. The sound of it caused the beginning of a lump in Gottlieb’s throat. He wondered why. He wasn’t her lover; he wasn’t even her suitor. Not yet, at least. Strictly speaking, they hadn’t known each other long enough to become friends, although he thought of her as one, in spite of himself.
He tried to speak in as natural a voice as he could muster. “Hello, Cassandra. It’s Hal Gottlieb.”
“Oh, hi, Hal!” The briskness went away in an instant. “I was hoping you’d call today.”
“You were?” he asked, instantly regretting it. I must sound like a smitten schoolboy.
“I can’t tell you what a treat it is to talk to someone who’s not an academic.”
“Are they really that oppressive?”
“In the aggregate, yes. But I suppose that’s true of any group. How would you find a steady diet of psychiatrists?”
“Deadly.” He paused. “I wondered if you might be interested in having lunch sometime this week.”
No hesitation whatsoever. “I’d like that. Any day but Wednesday should be good.”
Gottlieb glanced at his appointment book. Notwithstanding a tight schedule, he figured he could move things around to create a wedge of time for her. “How about Thursday, twelve
thirty?”
“Sounds fine. Why don’t you come to my place? I’ll fix us something.”
“I’d love to.”
She reverted to her brisk, efficient voice as she gave directions to her apartment. Gottlieb wrote down the directions carefully. The lump in his throat had disappeared, replaced by damp palms and a racing pulse as the call ended.
He waited for his pulse to slow, his focus to return, before he picked up the phone again. Then he dialed the number he’d been carrying on a scrap of paper since Saturday morning. Expecting to get an answering machine or service, he was caught off guard by the voice of a living, breathing man.
“Hello, Dr. Kenyon speaking.”
“Good afternoon, Dr. Kenyon. My name is Dr. Harold Gottlieb. I’m a psychiatrist at the Greater Chicago Forensic Institute.”
“Yes?” His tone, polite but noncommittal.
“One of my patients here is a man named James Shannon. I believe you treated his daughter, a patient of yours, a few years ago—”
“Christina,” he interrupted. “I remember her quite well.” He spoke with unnatural deliberation. “One doesn’t forget a patient like Christina Shannon.”
“I assume you know what happened to her.”
“Yes, of course. I’ve been following the case with great interest, as you might imagine.”
Gottlieb hesitated slightly. “Dr. Kenyon, I know this is an unusual request, but I wonder if you’d meet with me. There are some things about Christina, and what happened to her, that I’m trying to sort out. I’m hoping you might be able to shed some light on them.”
“I’m leaving town for ten days, beginning Thursday morning. If you’d like to meet before then, I could see you around six thirty Wednesday evening, in my office.” Gottlieb thought he heard a muted sigh. “The truth is, Doctor, I’ve been
waiting for someone like you to call.”
CHAPTER XIII
M ALCOLM KENYON, A MAN OF INDETERMINATE middle age, was about five nine with short-cropped graying hair and a slightly triangular, elongated face. His most note-worthy feature: hazel eyes, more green than brown, warm but a bit wary, inquiring but unthreatening. The eyes of
a man suited to bring solace to an abused third grader, or to tease out the burdensome secrets of a sullen adolescent. The eyes of a man who invited openness but did not demand it. Whatever you choose to tell me, I will listen. You won’t shock me, and I won’t pass judgment on you. But if you want to wait awhile, to talk about MTV or baseball, or merely to sit and say nothing while you feel me out, that’s all right too.
His neat appearance bordered on the fussy. A hot summer day was coming to an end, but his outfit didn’t show it. His white cotton shirt remained tucked tightly into the front of his gray trousers, his blue blazer showed scarcely a wrinkle, his red bow tie remained perfectly in place. By contrast, Gottlieb’s tie was loosened and askew, his top shirt button was unbuttoned, and his seersucker sports coat looked as though he’d played handball in it.
As Gottlieb sat across from him, he was struck by the minimalist order of the large walnut desk between them. The desk held a phone, an appointment book, a few letters, a stapler, and a fountain pen, and that was it. Gottlieb’s own desk tended to be awash in journals, notepads, prescription pads, mail opened and unopened, pictures of his wife and children, pens, pencils, and erasers. Every two or three weeks, he’d take an hour and wade through all of it. Two or three days later, his desk would look the way it had before.
“I remember when her mother phoned,” said Dr. Kenyon. “It was about this time of year, July. Christina had just come back from camp. Something happened there, and they sent her home early. Her mother sounded terribly embarrassed. My guess is, it was the first time anyone in the family made contact with a mental health professional. She phoned late on a Friday afternoon, pleading with me to see Christina as soon as I could. I gave her an appointment for the following Monday.”
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