Amnesia

by G. H. Ephron

  I continued, “Suppose I give someone with a brain injury a picture to remember. She remembers the overall subject matter but not the details. To use the cliché, she sees the forest but not the trees. Now here’s the problem: how can I tell if this is because of the brain damage, or because that’s just who she is? That’s what the personality tests tell me.”

  Chip still looked doubtful. He said, “Okay. So then we’ll have the memory tests. And the personality tests.”

  “You’re right. So what? I keep thinking about her description of the night of the murder. The version she told me was quite a bit different from the first version she gave to the police. For example, she told the police Tony was in the trunk.”

  “And now she knows he wasn’t,” Annie said.

  “Right. She reads the newspaper. She talks to people. Little by little, she pieces together the story and lines up her memory with the evidence. So we need to focus on the details of her story that aren’t corroborated by evidence.”

  “Then what?” Chip asked.

  “Then try to figure out where those details come from. Look for earlier memories that could be getting pulled forward to fill in the details. Cast suspicion on some, and you cast suspicion on the lot.

  “If you think about memory as a series of movies, some of which have to do with the past, some of which have to do with our fantasies and dreams, then what she’s doing makes sense. It’s like she has multiple movie tracks running in her head, and she’s pulling a little from here, a little from there. She doesn’t even know which tracks she’s pulling from. To convince the jury, you need to make them doubt her ability to tell the difference.”

  “But what about the camouflage hat she says Stuart Jackson was wearing when he burst into her bedroom the night of the murder?” Annie asked.

  That stopped me. “You’re right. The camouflage hat is a problem.”

  “What kind of problem?” Chip asked.

  Annie explained. “Well, she told the police about the hat before the police found one in Stuart’s closet.”

  “Right,” I agreed. “The evidence corroborated the memory rather than the other way round. So it couldn’t have been a case of her molding her memory to incorporate new information.”

  “Stuart says that hat isn’t his,” Annie said. “Hasn’t a clue where it came from. Seemed genuinely flabbergasted that they found it in his apartment.”

  “I need to talk to Stuart again,” I said. “About that. And about other things. Maybe he can clue us into where some of the details in her story are coming from.”

  “I’ll make arrangements,” Chip said.

  Then I flagged Jimmy. Chip picked up the tab.

  We walked outside. Chip’s car was parked at a meter right out front. Before he got in, he said, “I’ll let you know as soon as we’ve made arrangements for you to interview Stuart Jackson again. In the meanwhile, please be careful.”

  “I promise to try,” I said.

  Annie and I watched Chip drive off. “Beautiful day,” she said, the sun reflecting off her shades.

  I felt the warmth on my back and closed my eyes. “Mmm. Feels good,” I said. There was nothing pressing waiting for me back at the Pearce. I wanted to come up with an artful suggestion for prolonging lunchtime, but I was out of practice. The best I could do was, “Guess we should enjoy it while it lasts.”

  Annie must have been reading my mind. “I love this neighborhood,” she said. She checked her watch. “There’s a great bakery near here. I could use a little chocolate guilt to wash down that virtuous lunch. It’s just a block that-a-way.” She pointed down the street.

  “I’ve got a little time before I have to get back,” I said without even checking my watch. “I never pass up a good chocolate dessert.” But it wasn’t the chocolate that tempted me.

  Annie hooked her arm in mine and we strolled down the block. We checked out the menu of a Turkish restaurant. The smell of sharp cheese and baking bread wafted out the door of an old-fashioned Italian deli. We admired the salamis and provolones hanging in the window. We continued on down the street, lingering in front of a store that had a ratty-looking sign in the window: ANTIQUES.

  I shook my head. “Not bloody likely. That sign is probably the oldest thing they’ve …” The final word caught in my throat. Abandoning Annie, I hurried inside.

  A small, round man sat cross-legged in the corner in a wing chair that had seen better days. He looked like a carved wooden Buddha I got when I was a kid. Someone told me rubbing the tummy brought good luck. He glanced at me as the bell over the door jangled. He nodded, then he went back to writing in a ledger.

  Beside him, on a card table, was the thing that had stopped me in my tracks.

  “Excuse me.” I tried to sound nonchalant. “Could I see that?” I pointed.

  He looked distractedly at the items on the table and held up a battered silver teapot. I shook my head. He put it back and lifted a green, gourd-shaped vase.

  “Yeah. May I?”

  He handed it to me.

  I took the piece of pottery as he turned his attention back to his work. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, opened them again, and the pot was still there. I turned it over. An unsigned Grueby. I wondered if the dealer knew what he had.

  Annie had followed me in and was looking back and forth from my face to the pot, as if trying to solve a puzzle. She followed me to a more private corner of the store, out of the dealer’s earshot. “You seem excited,” she said.

  “I hoped it wasn’t that obvious. This is the kind of pot Kate collected. They’ve become so desirable, they’re hard to find in places like this anymore.” Annie looked at it doubtfully. “I know, I didn’t appreciate them much at first, either.” I handed Annie the pot and stood behind her as she held it under the light cast by a black panther lamp. Annie ran her long, slender fingers gently over its surface.

  “Feel the shape,” I told her, just as Kate had once instructed me to do. I touched Annie’s fingers and guided them from the narrow opening and tapered neck across the swell of the center. Annie held her breath. “See how the designs, here, cut into the surface of the pot, are like scar tissue?” We traced one of the vertical grooves in the green surface. I whispered, “The glaze. It’s the genius of the artist. See how the glaze makes it feel so organic? He does it with the textures. Here, how the green varies from a light feathery covering” — I moved Annie’s hand gently from one part of its surface to another — “to this scaly, almost elephant skin texture.”

  “I see what you mean,” Annie murmured. “It’s … incredible.”

  “Anything I can help you with?” The spell was broken. It was the proprietor, now up and smiling benignly at us.

  “Just curious, how much are you asking for this?” I asked with what I hoped was a disinterested tone.

  “It’s a very fine piece, don’t you think?” he said, sizing me up as he rocked gently forward and back, his hands folded placidly across his rotund middle. “Just came in. Haven’t even priced it yet. Let’s see,” he held out his hand and reluctantly I handed over the vase. He turned it over carefully. “Nice condition.” He fished a small magnifying lens out of his pocket and examined the bottom. I knew there was nothing there to see, except the telltale marks of a hand-thrown pot. “I could let it go for a hundred” — I reached for my wallet — “and ninety-five dollars.”

  I quickly paid him in cash and tried not to gloat. He wrapped the pot in newspaper and put the bundle into a wrinkled plastic bag.

  Annie was outside, waiting for me. “Well, you certainly look like the cat that ate the canary,” she said.

  “Tasty canary,” I said, grinning.

  When we reached the bakery, a half-block away, Annie’s cell phone rang. I checked out the goodies in the window while she took the call. When she pocketed the phone, she looked pleased.

  I brushed my fingers across my lips. “Canary feathers,” I said. “Now you’ve got them.”

  “Just thought I’d check
on whether anyone connected to the Jackson case owns a motorboat.”

  “And someone does?”

  Was it going to be that simple? Cherchez the boat and we’d find the person who had, not to put too fine a point on it, tried to murder me? Syl had said an old boyfriend used to take her out on the river. I wondered, for the umpteenth time, if Sergeant MacRae had any relationship with Sylvia Jackson that we didn’t know about.

  “Someone did,” Annie said.

  “But doesn’t own it anymore?”

  “Can’t own anything because he’s deceased.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. Tony Ruggiero’s motorboat fits the description of the one that hassled you.” It and about half of the other boats owned by half of the other idiots who like to zoom up and down the Charles. “Kept it over in Marina Bay.”

  “Is that where it is now?” I asked.

  “Nope. Now it’s gone missing. Someone helped themselves to it in the last week and hasn’t put it back.”

  “That’s very interesting,” I said. Just about anyone with access to Tony Ruggiero’s belongings could have borrowed that boat. And where was it now?

  “Food for thought,” Annie said. Then she closed her eyes and sniffed. “Speaking of which, smell that chocolate.” Annie looked at her watch. “Damn, no time to indulge. They’ve got this incredible brownie. It’s called chocolate orgasm.” Annie winked. “Check it out!”

  I did. Then I bought a second one, intending to bring it to Kwan. But it didn’t make it back to the hospital.

  14

  I WAS working on the unit that afternoon when Chip called. He’d arranged for me to see Stuart Jackson the next morning.

  After I finished the call, I went to get myself a cup of coffee. The normally locked kitchen door was ajar. I groaned inwardly as I hurried forward. Inside, Maria Whitson was standing by the counter. She was wadding up piece after piece of bread and, without pausing to chew or swallow, cramming them into her mouth. An empty cookie bag sat on the counter. Four banana peels were all that remained of a bowl of fruit.

  “Ms. Whitson,” I called out. But she didn’t react. She was like a machine, stuffing handful after handful of food into her mouth, her face expressionless concentration.

  From behind me I heard a little gasp, “What the … ?” Gloria had come in. Ever practical, Gloria promptly put the bread out of reach. Then she took hold of Maria’s hands. Maria, never taking her eyes off the bread, struggled to wiggle free.

  I came around in front of her. “Ms. Whitson, can you tell me what you’re doing?” A wave of rage washed over her face. Together, Gloria and I hustled her out into the dining room, making sure that this time the kitchen door was closed and locked. We sat her down at the table and I tried again.

  “Ms. Whitson, can you stop and talk about what’s happening here?” She wouldn’t respond. She just glared at me. She was still chewing and soggy bits of bread dribbled from her mouth.

  “Ms. Whitson,” I said, and put my face close to hers. “Do you realize what you’re doing?”

  The rage drained from her face. Lines of tension around her mouth and eyes eased as her muscles went limp. She started to cry.

  I repeated the question more gently. “Are you aware of what you were doing?”

  She swallowed once, and again. Then she frowned. She looked at me, confused. “It’s like I’m doing — and I’m watching at the same time,” she said, her voice sounding far away and tremulous.

  “You’re aware and you’re not aware.”

  “And the part of me that’s watching isn’t connected to the part that’s doing.”

  I was encouraged. This was the longest, unbroken, meaningful conversation we’d had since she arrived. And she was demonstrating a surprising degree of self-awareness and intelligence, despite the depersonalization that she was describing.

  “Doctor?” Gloria said.

  I answered her unasked question. “Go ahead.” Gloria left us alone.

  “How long has this been going on for you?” I asked.

  “Since the accident,” she said, her voice turned flat, without emotion.

  “The accident?”

  She looked down into her lap and started to twist the silver pinkie ring. “Two years ago. My husband was driving my car and he hit me.”

  “It was an accident?” I asked.

  “That’s what he said,” she mumbled, her mouth barely moving, her face without expression.

  “Two years is a very long time to feel out of control. You’ve been seeing a doctor for this?”

  She nodded again.

  “Does this have anything to do with why you’re here?”

  I waited for affirmation. When none came, I pressed on. “I know this is hard for you, but I need to find out more about why you’re here. I need to ask you some questions.”

  Maria stared vacantly at her hands. She seemed numb, unreadable.

  I tried again. “Ms. Whitson, I know you’re here because you tried to commit suicide. Why was that?”

  Then her eyes flickered and she seemed to snap back into herself. She pushed her greasy hair back from her forehead. “Look at me,” she spit out the words. “Just look at me. I’m a fat slob. I’m ugly. I’m stupid. No one can stand me. I’m too disgusting to even touch. I can’t control my compulsion to eat.”

  Self-loathing feeds on itself and serves no useful purpose. I wanted to move her beyond it, get her to a place where she could use her intellect to get some perspective. “I see. Was there anything in particular that happened at the time that you tried to kill yourself?”

  She started to answer and stopped. Started, and stopped again. At last, she folded her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes at me. “They’re all out to get me and I thought I would just save them the trouble.”

  “Everybody?” I asked, trying to keep my voice neutral.

  Her lower lip quivered. “I have nobody in the world who cares about me,” she declared. She hooked a piece of hair and started to twirl it, shifting her gaze to her lap.

  “And you’ve been seeing a therapist to help you deal with these feelings?” I could have guessed the answer to this even if I hadn’t seen Maria’s file. Very few people use a term like “compulsion to eat” if they haven’t been through talk therapy.

  “Since the accident I’ve been seeing Dr. Baldridge. Right away, he suspected that I’d been sexually abused.” It often took patients years of therapy, repeatedly describing the pain and humiliation of sexual abuse, before they could nonchalantly toss off the words. Only the hair, twirling now like a miniature propeller, gave any indication of the inner turmoil she must have felt.

  I asked gently, “I’d like to call Dr. Baldridge and get his insights into your treatment. With your permission, of course.”

  She nodded.

  “There’s something else, too. We need to set up a meeting with the people who will be there to provide a support system for you when you leave us. Friends? Relatives?”

  “There’s no one,” Maria said, her voice flat.

  “Your father was the one who brought you in,” I suggested.

  The hair stopped and her hand hung in midair. “No. I don’t want my father to come here.”

  “Perhaps your father and your mother both? You know they’ve been asking to see you.”

  “I don’t want to see any of my family. Dr. Baldridge says it’s because of them. Because of what they all did to me. He helped me remember.”

  I didn’t say anything. We needed a plan for moving forward. But I had no intention of forcing a pain-filled family reunion. To the contrary, we might need a plan that protected her from her family.

  “They’re in denial.” She’d gone back to the hair again, now spinning it quickly, around and around as her breath quickened and her eyes brightened. “Dr. Baldridge says that means they’re dangerous.”

  “Are you still seeing Dr. Baldridge?”

  Maria shook her head hard, once left and once right. The twirling slowed a
nd she took in a huge breath of air, exhaling with a heavy sigh.

  “Do you have a job?”

  She dropped the hair. “Real estate. I sell houses.”

  “Do you enjoy that?”

  “Yes,” she said thoughtfully, “I really do. I like matching people up to the right house.” She bit her lip, brought her pale eyebrows together, and concentrated on me. “Contemporary. I bet you go for real modern. Clean. Am I right?” She didn’t wait for me to answer. She was stargazing at the ceiling. “You’d have loved this condo we had in … in …” Slowly her smile dissolved and her face collapsed. Two big tears oozed from her eyes. “Oh, God! I can’t remember where it was.”

  Maria started to rock back and forth.

  “Ms. Whitson, does the eating help?” I asked.

  She stopped her rocking, apparently surprised by the question. “Uh — I guess it does.” She paused and thought about that. “It helps me forget. When I’m eating, I’m not flooded with images.”

  Flooded with images. Sounded like Baldridge. “What kind of images?”

  “Flashbacks. They’re awful,” Maria whispered. When she started talking again, the words came slowly. “When I eat, there’s nothing. Nothing else but the eating. I eat —” Maria’s mouth continued moving but there was no voice. She tried again. “I eat —” Again the voice faded. Her eyes became unfocused, the lids fluttering open and shut.

  “Ms. Whitson? You eat and what happens?”

  But it was no use. Maria’s head wobbled forward, jerked back, then fell forward again. She was snoring gently.

  I had to give up, but I felt satisfied. It was a good beginning.

  Late that afternoon, I took refuge in the conference room to scribble the main points of my encounter with Maria Whitson into her chart while they were still fresh in my mind. I had nearly finished when I heard a light knock. I looked up. Gloria was standing in the doorway, resting heavily against the jamb.

  “Long day?” I asked.

  “Is there any other kind?” she groaned. She came in and collapsed in the chair next to me. She took off her glasses and ran her hands back and forth through her short hair until it stood straight up on its own. She’d probably been on her feet most of the day.