My footsteps fell silent on the carpeting. I pricked up my ears, listening for any noises. I wasn’t sure what I expected to hear. Screams or cries maybe? Laughter or discussion? According to their Web site, Crestwood Home usually housed a hundred residents. But only an unnatural quiet rang back. I stopped and knocked when I reached the third door, which was closed and unmarked.
“Come in,” I heard.
Dr. Adler’s large office was furnished with overstuffed leather couches with worn, flannel blankets tossed over them. A wood desk with numerous nicks and scratches sat at the far end of the room. Above it, prints with bleak landscapes hung on the wall. If the rest of the home seemed like an upscale hotel or a club, Dr. Adler’s office appeared more like a lodge in Colorado.
A man stood from behind the desk, buttoning his tan jacket. I had expected a bookish, older man in a white lab coat, but Dr. Adler was tall and lean, his high cheekbones and pointed chin giving his face an elfin appearance. His brown hair was beginning to gray at the temples, and I guessed that he was in his late forties.
“Miss Sutter.” He moved around the desk and clasped my hand. “I’m Dr. Adler. It’s a pleasure.”
“You, too. I really appreciate your seeing me on such short notice.”
“Of course. This is one of my working weekends, so I was here when you called.” He raised a hand and gestured toward the couch along the far wall. “Would you like to lie down?”
I looked at the couch and back to his face again. “I don’t think that’s…I’m not here for…”
He gave me another half smile. “Just a little psychiatric joke.”
“Oh.” I laughed a little then, startled by the attempt at humor.
“Please,” he said, this time pointing to one of the leather chairs in front of his desk.
I sank into it, the soft chair engulfing me until I felt ten inches lower than Dr. Adler, who was now back behind his desk. I shifted, trying to position myself higher, wondering if he had bought the chairs like that on purpose.
“Dr. Adler,” I said, scooting forward. “I’m here to talk about my sister, Caroline Sutter.”
He gave a slight bow of his head. “My assistant mentioned that, and that’s why I agreed to see you today. The Portland police have contacted me, as well, so I know that Caroline is missing.”
“Really?” I remembered what Matt had said about the police being relatively unhelpful.
“Yes. I’m very concerned about her, as I’m sure you are, but I wanted to explain to you in person that, without Caroline’s express permission, I can’t divulge anything about her or her care to you.”
“And why is that?” Jesus. He had gotten me all the way out here, and he wasn’t going to give me anything?
“Because of physician/patient privilege. Are you familiar with what that means?” His voice held a trace of condescension.
“Yes, I’m an attorney. I know what the physician/patient privilege is.”
Dr. Adler spread his hands wide as if to show the futility of my being there.
“Well,” I said, “I’m sure you know the cases which say that a physician who fears his patient might harm themselves or others can break the privilege for the safety of the patient and the other people.”
Dr. Adler placed his elbows on his desk, forming a steeple with his fingers and leaning his chin on them. “Ms. Sutter, I cared about Caroline very much, and I was extremely proud of her progress. I still worry about her from time to time, but I keep in loose contact with her, and the letters I’ve received indicate nothing like what you’re suggesting.”
“When did you last hear from her?”
Dr. Adler pulled open a lower desk drawer that I couldn’t see. He turned his body and flipped through files. He lifted a sheet, glanced at it, then returned it to the drawer. “Six months ago.”
“Before she disappeared.”
“That’s correct.”
“Was she ever suicidal?”
“I can’t tell you that,” he said.
I tried not to show my frustration. Why was I here if he wasn’t prepared to tell me something? I decided to try again.
“Then just think the answer to yourself,” I said. “Ask yourself, was Caroline suicidal? Does the fact that she disappeared in the middle of a wedding and left a note for her husband telling him that she needed time away indicate that she might have had some kind of relapse? Does the fact that she is still missing mean that she might have harmed herself or be thinking about doing so?”
My voice raised slightly, despite my best efforts to remain calm. I didn’t want to anger Dr. Adler, but the more I talked, thinking about my sister out there somewhere, alone, when she had already spent so much of her life by herself, had given me real worry. This wasn’t just about me anymore and satisfying my need to discover what had happened to my mother. This had to be about Caroline and Dan, too.
The office was silent for a long time. Dr. Adler’s eyes narrowed as if he was going through a mental exercise. I tried to sit perfectly still, tried not to tap a foot or even blink my eyes.
Finally he said, “Yes. It’s possible that Caroline may try to hurt herself.”
“Then you can break the privilege. You can help me to help her.”
Silence again. And he nodded.
Dr. Adler had me wait in his office while he left the room to gather Caroline’s files, and then again he left me waiting while he sat at his desk and reviewed them. It seemed an interminably long time.
I crossed and recrossed my legs, struggling to stay upright in the cushy chair, holding in an impatient sigh. It occurred to me that if the Portland police had contacted Dr. Adler, then the police must have learned about the clinic from Matt, which meant that Caroline had told him about her stay here. The thought that they were so close, that Caroline had someone in her life she could talk openly with, comforted me.
At last, Dr. Adler took his chair again and looked at me. “First, I should start by telling you that I was a psychiatric resident when Caroline was first admitted here. She was technically under the care of Dr. Sammeth, who is no longer with us, but because of the nature of my residency, I was the physician who saw Caroline most often.”
I nodded, eager to get straight to the point. “And why was she admitted to begin with?”
“Caroline was admitted to Crestwood following a suicide attempt.”
“Oh,” I said, the sound slipping out of my mouth before I realized it. I had taken a stab in the dark when I asked Dr. Adler if Caroline had been suicidal, thinking that it might get him to help me, but hearing that she had actually tried to take her own life sent a surge of sadness through my body. It threatened to exhaust me.
Dr. Adler continued in a flat voice. “She used a kitchen knife to slit her wrists on the day she was supposed to graduate from high school. A place called…” Dr. Adler flipped through some notes.
“Brighton Academy,” I said, my voice flat.
He gave me a glance, then returned his eyes to the file. “That’s right. When we did an initial intake exam we found that she had been engaged in self-mutilation for a period of approximately five years.”
“Self-mutilation,” I repeated, finding my throat suddenly dry. “Can you tell me what that means?”
Dr. Adler put the file folder down on his desk. “It’s just what it sounds like, hurting one’s self, usually by cutting or slicing the skin, sometimes burning, in order to relieve one’s feelings. It’s often associated with unexpressed and unresolved loss or anger.”
“But if she’d been doing this—this mutilation—for five years, wouldn’t someone have noticed?” Please, I thought, tell me someone noticed.
Dr. Adler shook his head no. “It’s quite easy to hide, really. In Caroline’s case, she used safety pins, sometimes broken glass, but she took extreme care to ensure that no one could see the wounds. She cut herself in places like her armpits, inner thighs, behind her knees, that kind of thing.”
Dr. Adler paused, as if giving me space
to ask a question, but I was momentarily overwhelmed. Finally, I found my voice. “Why? Why did she do that?”
“As I said, this type of behavior is often associated with anger and loss. In Caroline’s case, it appeared to be related to a few things. One was the loss of your mother. Another was a deep anger toward your father. Instead of expressing these emotions outwardly, she would harm herself in order to achieve some kind of relief.”
“And did she talk about why she was so angry with our father?”
“Of course,” Dr. Adler said. “Caroline was here for a good number of years, you know. It was very hard for her to stop the mutilation, and so she was considered a threat to herself for a long time. She underwent intensive therapy of many forms—individual, group, art therapy, meds. During that time it came out that she felt abandoned by your father.”
A little rush of relief. “And is that it? She simply felt abandoned?”
“I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”
“Well, our mother died very suddenly, at least as far as I know, and from what I can tell, there was an investigation into her death. My parents were separated at the time, and apparently my mother was involved with someone else. I guess I’m wondering if Caroline ever talked about that or about anything specific that our father had done?”
Dr. Adler seemed to think for a minute. “Caroline was very reluctant to talk about the circumstances surrounding your mother’s death. After your mother died, she was sent off to boarding school, leaving her to fend for herself. She was only fourteen, if I recall correctly, and there were apparently very few visits by anyone in your family. She essentially felt discarded and neglected, and that was layered on top of what already was a somewhat depressive personality in her case.”
It made sense, I thought. But was that all there was?
Dr. Adler continued, “Now, as for your father, I should mention that Caroline was often reticent in her revealing her feelings and her past. It’s one of the reasons she was here so long. However, it was obvious to me that there was something she was holding back about your father, something that had angered her deeply.”
“Did she ever tell you what it was?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Do you know, generally, what it concerned?”
“I believe it may have concerned your mother, but I can’t say for certain.”
We both sat in silence. My mind stewed with thoughts of Caroline, of what she may have seen my father do.
“You mentioned her feelings of loss about our mother,” I said. “Can you explain a little more about that, about how she felt?”
His forehead creased, his thumb stroked the side of his jaw absently. “Caroline was, of course, experiencing a great amount of grief about the loss of your mother.” He looked up at me. “You were very young at the time, I take it?”
“I was seven.”
He continued rubbing his jaw. “Caroline would tell us that your mother fell down a flight of stairs, but she refused to give details past that point, which made us wonder if she was telling the truth. We never did get an answer from her that the staff was satisfied with. All we could determine for sure was that she felt an utter destruction of her world, as well as some guilt.”
“Guilt?” I pushed myself forward in the too-soft chair. “Why would she feel guilt?”
“It’s not uncommon in adolescents to feel a certain sense of helplessness following the death of a parent, a certain sense that if only things were different they could have prevented the death.”
“Is that how Caroline felt?”
Dr. Adler gave me another one of his calculating stares. “You must be a trial lawyer.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You notice the use of generalities in semantics.”
I didn’t respond.
Dr. Adler made a barely audible sigh. “This topic—your mother’s death, I mean—was somewhat of a bone of contention with the staff here at the time. Dr. Sammeth and the counselors felt Caroline was reacting typically to this event…” He trailed off.
“But you felt differently?”
He gave a slight nod. “To me, her feelings on this issue seemed to be closely tied to another strong emotion.”
“What was that?”
Dr. Adler shifted in his seat, and for the first time, I sensed he was uncomfortable. “Caroline had a certain irrational hatred.”
“Toward a certain person?”
“That’s right.”
“Was it my father?”
“No.”
“Who then?” I was beginning to get exasperated.
“I’m afraid,” he said, placing his hands on the desk, “that it was you.”
19
My foot lifted off the brake and stepped on the gas. I signaled a left merge onto the highway. I saw the outlines of the city in the distance. But I was removed from all of it. In my mind someone was chanting over and over, She hated you, she hated you, she hated you.
Dr. Adler had explained it well enough, I suppose. Her emotions about me had to do with the fact that I was taken care of by my father, he said. I had been sheltered, while Caroline was sent off to a boarding school alone, unprepared. It was perfectly natural, he said. He was sure Caroline no longer felt like that.
“She was making me a quilt,” I said stupidly. I was slumped at the back of that cushy chair by then, unable to keep my rod-straight posture, unable to care anymore that the height difference might give Dr. Adler some kind of intellectual advantage. What did it matter? My sister hated me.
“Excuse me?” Dr. Adler said.
“I spoke to her husband, and he said she was making me a quilt.”
“Well, that’s excellent. As I said, Caroline had stopped focusing on that irrational hatred of you by the time she left us. When I’ve corresponded with her over the last few years, she seemed very happy with her husband.”
My eyes met Dr. Adler’s over his desk, the unspoken thought between us—if Caroline was so happy, why had she gone missing?
Keeping one hand on the wheel now, I fumbled through my purse for my cell phone. I hit the speed dial for Maddy’s number. Not home. Again. No answer on her cell phone, either. The shock was growing into something more panicky. My sister hated me! I had to tell someone.
Matt. I should call Matt. I owed him a phone call anyway. I called Information for his number and stopped to pay a toll while the call was connected.
He answered almost immediately with a gruff “Hello,” like the first time I called.
“Matt, it’s Hailey,” I said. “How are you?”
“Same.”
“No word?”
“Nothing.” He said the word so quietly that it broke my heart. There was a pause, then he said, “Have you talked to your father?” He had so much contempt in his voice now that he made the words your father sound like “that serial killer.”
“Yeah, I have,” I said.
“What did he say about Caroline?”
“We talked about her going to boarding school and stuff like that, and—”
“Hailey, I’m sorry to be rude, but I don’t care about that. I want to know what he said about Caroline’s disappearance.”
Oh, God. How to tell him that I’d never even gotten to that topic because I’d been too upset about the fact that he was lying to me, telling me pretty tales about Caroline at Yale and in Paris. “We didn’t exactly get there,” I said.
“What? You didn’t even ask him? You promised me!”
“I know, but I—”
“What?”
“I didn’t think he’d tell me the truth. But look,” I said, rushing on to a different subject, “I just found out something else about Caroline. I went to Crestwood Home. You know about her stay there, right?”
“Yes. But how do you know?”
“I saw some letters from there that she wrote to a family friend. I went to Crestwood today and talked to one of her doctors.”
“And they actually talke
d to you? I mean, they told you about Caroline’s treatment?” His accusatory tone was impossible to miss.
“Yeah, they did. And I would think you’d want to know about it. I think you’d want to know anything that can help us find her.”
“Well, did you find anything other than she used to cut herself and she tried to kill herself? Jesus, how could you do that? How could they do that? That’s an invasion of her privacy! I don’t want to know anything unless she’s called them in the last few weeks, which I assume she hasn’t.”
“No,” I said simply. I got off the highway and started making my way over the bridge into the city. Matt’s palpable anger was making me shaky, unsure, and I was glad to hit a patch of traffic so I could slow the car.
He was quiet for a second. “I’m sorry. I’m taking this out on you, when I shouldn’t be. I guess I’ve been hoping that you’d find something out from your father.”
“I’m not sure he knows anything about Caroline or Dan, and if he does, I’m not sure he’d tell me.”
“Dan? What do you mean he doesn’t know anything about Caroline or Dan?”
Traffic had started moving again. My car growled as it slowly inched over the steel grid lines of the bridge. The closer I got to the middle, the more anxious it made me, just as my search into my mother’s death made me more uneasy all the time. I explained as quickly as I could what I’d learned about Dan’s life, about how no one had heard from him since that Saturday, the same day Caroline disappeared. I didn’t tell him what Annie said about New Orleans. I had promised her after all, and it was something I hadn’t been able to follow up on yet.
“Christ,” Matt said. “This is too fucking weird. I mean, excuse my language, but a brother and sister both walking off into the sunset on the same day? Your goddamn dad has to know something.”
“You’re right. Look, I’ll go over to his house tonight, okay? I’ll find something.”
“Please,” Matt said, his voice soft once more. “Do whatever you have to do. I miss my wife. I miss her so much.”
My father’s house was dark. It was a large, Georgian home with redbrick, white square columns holding up the portico over the front door, and black shutters framing the windows. The setting sun cast a sinister orange glow behind it. The front-hall lights were off, a sure sign he wasn’t home. After thinking about it all afternoon, I had decided to drive out here and simply confront him, ask him what he knew about Caroline and Dan. I procrastinated at first by halfheartedly working on the McKnight case. I took a walk around the neighborhood. Finally, I got up the courage to drive out to Manhasset. But where was he? Maybe out of town for a deposition? Or maybe just out to dinner? Despite the messages he’d left me, I hadn’t spoken to him since that night at the Van Newton Guild.
Look Closely Page 19