The Girls He Adored elp-1

by Jonathan Nasaw

  “Now, once we start our therapy, I have no objection to your speaking to whomever you please,” Max was saying. “As long as you don't try to take advantage of the situation, that is. Keep in mind-I'll be there, I'll be listening, I'll know everything any of them tells you, and hear everything you tell any of them.”

  Not any, thought Irene, remembering Max's confusion after the hypnotherapy session. Not Lyssy.

  “And if you try to persuade any of them to do anything against the system's best interest, I will terminate the therapy with extreme prejudice. Are you familiar with that term?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “I got it out of Apocalypse Now. It's a euphemism. A termination with extreme prejudice is invariably fatal.”

  “I'll keep that in mind,” said Irene. “But may I speak frankly?”

  “Always.”

  “If in your opinion you have the system operating so smoothly, why are you seeking therapy?”

  He looked over at her sharply, then turned back to the road unspooling ahead of them. Traffic had begun to clear. They were cruising at fifty miles an hour, the van's maximum speed. That was why he'd stayed on 101 instead of cutting over to the interstate: doing fifty on Route 5 could get you pulled over for obstructing traffic.

  “You're not being sarcastic by any chance, are you Irene?”

  “No-I think it's a legitimate question.”

  “Then I'll give you a legitimate answer. It's no goddamn picnic being a multiple. You're always one slip away from humiliation. Hard to hold down a job. And as for a relationship, forget it- who'd want a relationship with a whole theatrical troupe? You'd never know whom you're making love to.”

  Irene decided not to point out that the DID literature was rife with examples of multiples' spouses (usually male spouses of female multiples) who actively subverted therapy because being married to a multiple was like having your own imaginary harem.

  “I'm still a little confused,” she told him instead. “You said you've restored order to the system. Why not just stay in control yourself?”

  “I wish to hell I could. But it doesn't work like that. The only way I can stay in control is by letting the others all have their turns. If I don't, they're apt to force their way out. Sometimes they do anyway-that's how you met Useless the other day.”

  Irene thought back to what the hapless host alter had said-that Max wouldn't allow any therapy. Now she was beginning to understand. “So what you're telling me is that you want to go into therapy not to achieve integration, but to maintain more effective control over the other alters. I don't know how much progress we can make under those ground rules.”

  “A little fine-tuning, for a more efficiently functioning system? That's just textbook fusion, Irene-a textbook therapeutic resolution. I think it's doable, and I think it's worth a shot. How about you?”

  Irene knew better than to ask him what her alternatives were. Suppressing a shudder, she turned her thoughts to the work ahead of her. Fusion was difficult enough to achieve in the best of circumstances-and time-consuming: three years at a minimum. But who could say for sure? This multiple was different from any of the others she'd treated-perhaps with a powerful alter like Max in charge, instead of the usual ineffective host, the possibility of an early resolution might not be all that far-fetched.

  In any event, it would surely beat termination with extreme prejudice. So: start therapy, keep Max happy, keep your eyes open for any crack or weakness in the system that might be exploitable-and most important, stay alive.

  “I suppose I'm game if you are,” she told him. Then she turned to her left, reached across the space separating them, and gently pushed that unruly comma of hair, blond now, back from his forehead, and tucked it under his watchcap for him.

  38

  Ed Pender had tossed his share of houses in his time, and one of the conclusions he'd come to was that it was often easier to find something that had been deliberately hidden than something that hadn't. Cops, like burglars, knew all the hiding places-mattresses and drawer bottoms, freezers and toilet tanks, wall safes and crawl spaces.

  But Irene Cogan hadn't been trying to conceal her Dictaphone, which meant it might be anywhere. After a thorough search first of her office, then her living room, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom, Pender had learned almost as much about Dr. Cogan as he would have from meeting her face to face-certainly more than she would have volunteered.

  He knew her late husband had been named Frank, that he'd been a builder and a golfer and an amateur painter. He knew that either she and Frank hadn't been able to have children or didn't want any-although there was obviously no shortage of money, they'd purchased a small home with only one bedroom.

  He saw that she was neat, but not a fastidious housekeeper, that she was a conservative dresser who preferred department stores to couturiers. He knew she was slender, small in the top and long in the legs, and that she had her hair dyed at the hairdressers but touched it up occasionally with L'Oreal. Her scent was Rain, her favorite color was blue, and she was probably proud of those long legs-she had more dresses than pantsuits, more skirts and shorts than slacks, and although she wore plain white cotton panties from Olga, she wasn't averse to shelling out the big bucks for high-end pantyhose and stockings, and understood the value of high heels.

  From the journals and books on psychology in every room of the house, and the dearth of fiction in the bookshelves, videos in the TV stand, or publications other than professional in the bathroom, he gathered she was a workaholic. He also knew that she smoked Benson and Hedges, had recently taken up jogging, subsisted largely on salads, and probably didn't care for chocolate.

  Pender could also make some informed assumptions as to Dr. Cogan's sexual habits. There were no signs that she'd entertained an overnight visitor in the recent past, much less that she was involved in a long-term relationship. Only one toothbrush in the bathroom, and one dainty Silk Effects razor by the bathtub. No man had left his pajamas folded in one of her drawers or hanging in her closet-there was no indication, in fact, that anyone but herself had been in that bedroom in a long, long time. No snazzy lingerie in her underwear drawer-just those Olga panties and a utilitarian-looking beige garterbelt for her beloved stockings- while the sexy satin nightgown in her closet had gone unworn for so long that there were deep-scored hanger marks pressed into the shoulders.

  Most telling of all, there was no diaphragm in the bathroom, nor spermicidal jelly, contraceptive foam, or birth control pills, and no condoms, oils, or unguents in the drawer of the bedside table- there wasn't even a vibrator in evidence. All of which suggested strongly to Special Agent Pender that Dr. Irene Cogan had not (to put it crudely) been getting any lately.

  Oh, and one other thing. He knew from the wedding picture of the Cogans on the mantel over the small fireplace in the living room that before she started coloring her hair, Dr. Irene Cogan had been a strawberry blond. He only prayed that Casey didn't know it.

  But despite all that he had learned about Dr. Cogan, Pender still had no idea where the hell she'd stashed her Dictaphone, and after two hours of searching, his head was absolutely killing him.

  Might as well call it a night, he told himself, entering the upstairs bathroom for the second time that evening. This time he wasn't looking for anything except relief for his bladder. When he bent forward (carefully, on account of his pounding head) to raise the toilet seat, he noticed that the decorative guest towel hanging from the rack on the wall behind the toilet had been pulled down until it brushed the top of the toilet tank. The front of the top of the tank-it wasn't hanging parallel to the wall.

  And now he knew-he knew almost before he flipped the towel up. Thirty years an investigator, a re-creator of events, Pender tended to think first in terms of reverse process. Dictaphone on toilet, hidden by towel. Not hidden-shielded. From what? To protect it from getting wet-it's in a bathroom.

  But why a bathroom? Of course: Dr. Cogan was a workaholic. Pender already knew she worke
d while eating. How about while bathing? You bet. So she put her expensive Dictaphone on the toilet seat, where she could reach it, but where there was no danger of it falling into the tub.

  Once he had Dr. Cogan in the bath listening to the Dictaphone resting on the toilet seat, Pender worked forward again. Splish, splash, she steps out of the bath. Wraps a towel around her-not the guest towel-and maybe another to make a turban for her hair. But she needs to sit down, dry her toes or whatever. Moves the Dictaphone to the top of the toilet tank. Pulls the towel on the rack down to cover the apparatus so it won't get wet when she unwraps her turban.

  All this Pender saw in his mind's eye within seconds of lifting the decoratively hemmed bottom of the towel to reveal a pearlgray, state-of-the-art Dictaphone the size of a paperback novel, with one tiny tape cassette beside it and another still inside. At the same time, though, he understood full well that for all his investigative prowess, he would never have discovered it if he hadn't needed to take a piss.

  It's better to be lucky than smart, Ed Pender reminded himself, not for the first time in his long career.

  39

  Flashing lights in the passenger-side mirror.

  Please, I want to live, thought Irene. Maxwell pulled the van over to the side of the highway, steering with his right hand while reaching across his body to draw Terry Jervis's snub-nosed offduty. 38 from the waistband of Bill's jeans with his left.

  “What's going to happen?” Irene asked him.

  His eyes were fixed on the rearview mirror as he lowered the revolver out of sight between the edge of the seat and the door. He knew what he had to do-he also knew it would be better for his relationship with Irene if he pretended that one of the other alters had done it. Luckily, he could imitate them all.

  First, though, he had to feign a switch. “I don't… I don't know,” he stammered, as if he were in the process of stressing out, then closed his eyes and blinked them violently several times before continuing in Kinch's rough, reluctant voice. “The fuck do I know? He probably calls in the plates first. They're looking for this van, he stays in his unit, calls over the loudspeaker for us to put our hands up, keep them in view.

  “That happens, I either hold the gun to your head, see how much leverage you buy me as a hostage, or I put a few rounds through his windshield and run for it.”

  “And if he only wants to give you a ticket or something?”

  “He asks me for my license, I have to kill him. Don't make me have to kill you, too-I don't want Max to have to start all over with another therapist.”

  For the next few seconds the wheels of Irene's mind spun ineffectually. If the highway patrolman got out of his car, this new alter would kill him. If the cop didn't get out of his car, the alter would kill her. She couldn't pray for the latter and wouldn't pray for the former. But when she heard the door of the cruiser opening, her first reaction was pure relief, followed quickly by shame and a sense of impending horror. She closed her eyes.

  Footsteps on gravel, then Maxwell's voice-his new voice: “What's the problem, officer?”

  “Did you know you have a taillight out?”

  He sounded like a young one. Irene kept her eyes shut tight- she didn't want to see his face.

  “No, I didn't. I'll get it fixed at the next town, I-”

  “Can I see your license and registration, please?”

  “Got 'em right here.”

  The pistol cracked three times. The noise was unbearable in the confines of the van. Irene covered her ears. Maxwell opened his door, stepped out. Another shot. Irene buried her face in her hands and began sobbing.

  “Oh, knock it the fuck off.” Maxwell slammed the door and peeled out. He steered the van across the grassy, depressed median strip, executing a wide U-turn; they roared south on 101, past the orphaned highway patrol car with its lightbar flashing and its radio squawking. The left sleeve of Max's blue flannel shirt was splattered by blowback-blood and soggy, spongy beige brain tissue from the point-blank coup de grace.

  He switched the pistol to his right hand, leaned toward her, and shoved the end of the short barrel against her neck; the steel was still hot. “Calm down or I'll blow your head off, right here, right now.”

  “Okay,” she managed. “Okay, okay…”

  Okay okay okay… Pounding the side of her fists against her thigh to the rhythm. Okay okay okay…

  By the time she stopped, her thighs were sore, but the panic attack was over, replaced by an exquisite spiritual and emotional numbness. Irene sat up, looked around-they were off the highway, driving east up a steep mountain road. “I'm okay,” she told him.

  “So I heard.” He was hunched forward, concentrating on the road.

  “Do you know where you're going?”

  “I think so. If not, I'll find somebody who does.”

  “And kill them?”

  “When I no longer need them.”

  “Are you going to kill me when you no longer need me?”

  Max gave her his best Kinch glare-ordinarily, when a woman saw it, it was her last sight on earth.

  “Frankly, lady, I don't need you now.”

  Max had bigger problems to attend to than a hysterical womanthough he had expected better from a psychiatrist. He knew it wouldn't take long for the CHP to realize they'd lost one of their officers. He needed another vehicle, quickly-he figured he had no more than fifteen minutes to get off the highway, then find a way north without running into any of the roadblocks the CHP would be throwing up on 101.

  In fact, it took less than ten minutes for a motorist who'd apparently seen his share of cop shows on TV to spot Officer Trudell's body in front of the orphaned patrol car, pull over, and use Trudell's own radio to call in the emergency.

  “Officer down,” he'd shouted self-importantly into the dashboard mike. “Officer down!”

  Since Trudell had followed standard procedure, calling in the description and license plate of the vehicle he was stopping, within minutes of the discovery of his body the CHP dispatcher called in a 10-28-a request for vehicle registration information from the California DMV-and was able to ascertain that the suspect vehicle was a white '72 Dodge van owned by a William Stieglitz, of Big Sur. By then, roadblocks had already been thrown up on 101 in both directions, and the CHP had a plane in the air, while a few hundred miles to the south, the Monterey County Sheriff's Department dispatched a deputy to the Stieglitz residence in Big Sur.

  Deputy Gerald Burrell was perhaps not the sharpest blade in Aurelio Bustamante's department. He located the driveway eventually and raced his cruiser up the steep hill, fishtailing and kicking up dust behind.

  “No van up here,” he called into the dispatcher. “Just a green Volvo station wagon.”

  “Of course there's no van there,” replied the dispatcher, who was familiar with Burrell's shortcomings. “It was north of Ukiah two hours ag-Whoa, whoa, say again the vehicle on premises?”

  “Volvo station wagon, green, license three niner niner-”

  The dispatcher didn't even wait for Burrell to finish. “That's the guy who broke out of County-Jesus Christ, Gerry, don't you read the BOLOs?”

  Burrell found Bill Stieglitz lying on the floor of the trailer a few minutes later, his head nearly severed by the kitchen cleaver embedded in his throat and his body, in full rigor mortis, straining against the ropes that had bound it in life.

  Within minutes of Deputy Burrell's discovery, the BOLO was updated to include the van, and the search for Officer Trudell's killer was folded into the Casey manhunt, which was moved north to Mendocino County.

  By then Max had turned off 101 and was heading east, toward Covelo. When he heard the planes buzzing and the helicopters whop-whop-whopping to the west, he turned off the main Covelo road, followed a mountainous two-lane county road for a twisting half mile or so, then pulled the Dodge off to the side of the road into a copse of trees, where with any luck it wouldn't be seen at least until daybreak.

  Irene was still numb in the after
math of the cop's murder and her subsequent panic attack. She allowed Max-it seemed to be Max again-to drag her from the van and march her back up the hillside, then lay docilely in the heavy brush by the side of the road for what seemed like an eternity while he waited for a suitable vehicle to come along. It was nearly dawn when he finally scooped her up in his arms and stepped out into the road to flag down a blue Cadillac.

  As the driver ran toward them, Irene saw that she was only a girl, a beautiful young Native American girl. Enough is enough, she thought-not the most elegant thought anyone ever decided to die for.

  And as Irene began to struggle and shout, trying to warn the girl away, knowing that it would probably cost her her own life in return, her biggest regret was not having to die, it was that she hadn't found the courage to begin fighting earlier, in time to warn the highway patrolman. At least then her death would have put an end to the killing.

  Bernadette Sandoval, a twenty-three-year-old Pomo Indian, drove a powder-blue '78 Coupe de Ville her mother had named Maybelline, after some old fifties rock-and-roll song. Eight cylinders, eighteen feet long, and bench seats front and back, wide enough to screw in comfortably. This last was important, as Bernadette lived with her mother and grandmother in Willits, while her fiance Ernie was currently living with his father in the hills east of Covelo.

  Since attaining her majority, Bernadette had been working as a night-shift cocktail waitress at the Pomo casino on the Round Valley Reservation north of Covelo. After her shift ended on the morning of Saturday, July 10, she detoured by Ernie's father's place, turned into the driveway, shut off her engine and turned off her headlights, then coasted down to the house in the dark. Ernie was waiting for her on the front step. They enjoyed a quick one, then a slow one, in Maybelline's spacious backseat.