by D. J. Palmer
For a fleeting moment, Grace allowed herself to believe it was Penny. But no, that was an illusion. This girl had a menacing stare that radiated anger.
So familiar. So heartbreaking.
So damn Eve.
Penny was the child Grace had raised, but she was perfectly attuned to her daughter’s many mannerisms, speech patterns, moods, and behaviors. A squint of her wide eyes, a dip of her delicate shoulders, or an upward tic of her full lips might signal the arrival of someone new within, transforming her in a blink from friendly to sullen, from easy to anxious.
Each alter—and there were three Grace knew of, well below the average number of ten—was as distinct as any two people. There was Eve, the darkest and most outspoken of the lot; Chloe, the perfectionist, always striving for straight As in school; and Ruby, who spoke with a British accent. The alters were so different from each other, and from Penny, that Grace had come to view and treat them as individuals in the same way she did her two sons.
Right away, Grace noticed that something was missing. Her daughter always wore a necklace with an anchor pendant that Grace had bought for her. Penny never took off that necklace except to clean it, but now it was gone, probably stained with blood and bagged and tagged as evidence.
“About time you got here.” Her daughter spoke in an acerbic tone. “Like Officer Charming here said, I could use something to change into.”
Despite the coating of blood, Grace couldn’t resist the urge to hug her daughter. As she approached with her arms outstretched, however, Penny raised her hands like two stop signs.
“Please, Mother,” she said, grimacing. “I’m absolutely disgusting. I wouldn’t think of hugging me. Get a grip, will you?”
The officer, who had remained in the room, spoke up.
“She needs to come with us to get changed. A female officer will take her clothes for evidence. We have a shower she can use. Your lawyer said I’m to escort you to another room so he can meet with your daughter in here, in private, after she’s cleaned up.”
“Okay, does that mean you can leave now so I can be alone with my mother?”
“Not right now, no,” said the officer. “When your lawyer’s here, I’ll wait outside the door. But not before.”
“Okay, after can I go home?”
The officer shook his head. “No, you need to be arraigned. Can’t do that at least until morning.”
“So I have to spend the fucking night in here?”
She spit the words. Most girls Grace knew, most anybody, would be quaking with fright in this situation, but Eve was hardly a typical girl. Her nature was to lash out and defend at all cost, which is why Grace intervened before her daughter could launch the protest she knew was coming.
“It’s okay,” Grace said, trying not to gape at her daughter’s horrific state. She thought of Navarro, strong and steady, his advice to take it one step at a time, and found comfort in that mantra. Keeping a short distance between them, Grace handed her daughter the plastic bag Detective Allio had already searched.
“Here’s your change of clothes, Penny,” she said. She wasn’t thinking when she spoke, but regretted it the moment the word left her mouth.
Penny.
Her daughter looked as though she’d been given an open-palm smack to the face.
“What the hell, Mother?” she snapped. “I’ve got blood all over me,” she gestured to her body, “I’ve been arrested, my wrists hurt something awful—the least you can do is get my damn name right.”
She presented her wrists to Grace as if that were the worst part of her deplorable condition. Sure enough, there were bright red rings marring her skin where handcuffs had been. Penny then turned to the officer standing close by and whispered loud enough for Grace to hear: “My mother might be on something … you know … something e-legal. You may want to check her purse before she leaves.”
The stoic young officer failed to restrain a reluctant smile.
“And just so you know, Officer Charming,” Penny continued, “my name is Eve. Eve Francone. I’m seventeen years old. I can tell you that, and I can tell you where I live, but I don’t have to tell you a damn thing if I don’t want to. I know my rights.”
Grace shivered at the precision of her daughter’s speech. It was as if she’d rehearsed the words in advance, knowing she’d need them. Then again, that was her job. Eve had always been full of aggression and rage. (Stay away! Back off!) In that capacity, she functioned as Penny’s guardian.
“We all have ‘Eves’ inside of us,” Grace had told Penny’s brothers in an attempt to put their sister’s DID condition into a more relatable context. “She’s the angry one who lashes out when you get cut off by an inconsiderate driver. Or the revenge fantasy of what you’d say or do after you get your heart broken, or you’re fired from a job. Eve is the girl you’d want on your side when you need someone to look after you. Now I’m counting on you two, her brothers, to look after her.”
Penny was always so reserved, so unsure of herself, and, at least according to one of her elementary school teachers, painfully timid. She would have shriveled like a raisin in the presence of any uniformed officer, talking in a voice so soft she’d have been asked to repeat every word. But this girl had no trouble holding court or expressing her needs. Now that Grace knew for certain one of her daughter’s alters had taken over, she would no longer think of this girl as Penny. No, this was Eve.
Eve removed the items from the bag. In Grace’s rush to get to the police station, she had grabbed dirty pajamas and a blue sweatshirt out of the laundry room hamper.
“Oh my God, these clash horribly, Mother,” said Eve, holding up the clothes with a scornful look, which Grace found utterly chilling.
Thanks to plenty of therapy and practical experience, Grace knew Eve’s antics were merely a mask, a protective shield, nothing more. Underneath that false and misplaced bravado lurked a terrified young woman trapped in an utterly foreign, incomprehensible situation. Eve had taken over for Penny as was her duty and obligation, because Penny couldn’t survive in here—and nothing Eve said could be taken personally.
Grace had done her duty as well. She’d laid eyes on her child; seen that she was okay and appeared uninjured. She could let her go and sit with her thoughts and the profound ache of helplessness that was sure to be her new constant companion.
“Just know I’m here, okay?” Grace said, hoping her words meant something. “I love you, and I’m not going to leave you alone. I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
“They said I killed somebody. Who did I kill?”
Grace wanted to know everything—to ask her what happened, how she’d reconnected with her birth mother, what triggered her rage. She wanted to know it all, but then thought of Navarro.
“We’ll talk later, okay?”
It took incredible restraint to muster that simple response.
“Why don’t I take her now,” the officer in the room said, perhaps sensing things were about to head south, and fast. “We’ll get her changed and cleaned up, and I’ll bring you to a room where you can wait in private for your attorney.”
“Oh, don’t look so glum, Mother,” Eve said, putting her bloodied hands together in a prayer pose. “Think about the bright side. You won’t have to worry about paying for my college now.”
The smile that overtook Eve’s face held nothing but malice.
“Go get changed. I’ll see you soon. I love you … Eve,” Grace said, catching herself before she used the wrong name again.
* * *
After meeting with Penny, Navarro entered the small room off a kitchen area where Grace was waiting. He wore a solemn expression, and his complexion appeared to have gone a bit ashen. It was disturbing to think that Eve could drain the life force from even the most seasoned defense attorney.
“Well?” Grace asked nervously.
“Well, we’ve got our hands full, that’s for sure,” said Navarro. “Thanks for that warning, by the way. She was quite u
pset that you called her the wrong name, but she did give me permission to talk to you about what we discussed, so I’m free to share some of what we talked about.”
“Thank goodness for that,” said Grace, feeling a mix of relief and anxiety. “What did she say?”
“She said she doesn’t remember taking the car, how she got to Rachel’s house, or even why she went there in the first place. And she told me definitively that she doesn’t remember killing Rachel Boyd.”
“Is she devastated? It’s her birth mother.”
Grace braced herself, unable to fully grasp how shattering that news would be.
“No, and I suspect we need some professional guidance in that regard. I’m surprised, though, at her lack of memory. It doesn’t strike me as a convenient memory gap.”
“It’s not that. It’s a major symptom of DID, but it’s far more severe than being forgetful.” Grace hated the sinking feeling in her bones. “When she switches alters, it’s possible, probable really, that she can’t recall specific events, people, things she’s said or done, even something like this. Sometimes those memories belong to someone else—to another alter, or to her primary self, to Penny. But it could be, if the event is truly traumatic, she might enter a dissociative fugue state, a type of amnesia that could last for minutes, hours, months … even years.”
“Wow,” Navarro said, setting a hand on his chin. “Clearly I’ve got some research to do.”
“I have a lot of information I can give you,” Grace told him. “With time, when it’s less stressful, she may have new memories to share.”
It felt good to stay proactive. Her other option was to do what, become immobilized? Useless? Catatonic? That simply wasn’t Grace’s way. The more time she spent with Navarro, the more comfortable Grace was with her decision to move on from that other attorney. She felt certain by the end of the evening they’d work out a formal agreement and she’d remind him of the rate cut he had offered. She imagined there’d be a lot of free lunches in his future.
“What now? What happens next?” Grace asked.
“Next she’ll be arraigned. We’re still sorting out the indictment, but given her history, I’ll petition the court for a full psychological evaluation.”
“Do you think we can win on an insanity verdict?”
Navarro raised a hand as an indication to proceed slowly and with caution.
“One step at a time, like I said. This is a marathon, not a sprint. But the court should grant a request to have her hospitalized at a secure facility for the evaluation period, twenty days to start, and it could be extended from there.”
“A hospital,” said Grace. “That’s good, right? It’s better than jail.”
Navarro’s face harbored a cryptic look. “There’s only one state hospital with the strict security the court will demand that takes patients of the same age and gender as Penny.”
“And that is?”
“Edgewater State Hospital,” Navarro said, his voice carrying evident dismay. “It’s part of the Mass Department of Correction.”
“But it is a hospital, right?” Grace asked.
“Yes, but Grace, I’m just being honest here, knowing Edgewater, its reputation … I have clients who are sentenced there, and, well, it’s not the best place in the world. It’s less healthcare facility and more housing for the criminally insane. In fact, part of me thinks prison would be better.”
CHAPTER 5
WE DIDN’T GET ALL the details until we gathered at the kitchen table in Swampscott. It was just the three of us—Mom, me, and Ryan—though I’d swear I felt Dad’s presence like a ghost hovering in the room. Mom told us what happened, starting from the detective at the door to seeing you as you were, covered in blood, like that scene in the movie Carrie—the one starring Sissy Spacek, forget the remake.
Mom’s a stoic, doesn’t like to show her vulnerable side. But that night, her dazed look, the way her jaw was set tight enough to crack the bone, told me the burden was more than even she could bear.
I was shaken to the core, couldn’t believe my ears, but Ryan’s reaction, well, it sort of surprised me. He looked—I don’t know exactly how to put it—but I guess smug is the word, sitting there, sipping an icy Coke, like he knew all along that you were dangerous and one day something like this would happen.
As your alters became more apparent Ryan couldn’t take it, wanted less and less to do with you, stopped trusting you entirely. I don’t know how much of his distancing was your DID, which he didn’t believe was real, or that he continued to blame you for Dad’s death.
You know what, I worry about Ryan. When you carry that kind of resentment around long enough it stews inside, cooking blame into a foul-tasting anger.
But nothing compares to your anger, does it? After your arrest, you put someone else in charge. Your switches have lasted days, maybe a month even, but never for this long. Almost a year and a half now since you’ve been gone, the entirety of your time locked up in that psych hospital while awaiting trial. It feels a bit like you abandoned us, ran away, leaving us with the harshest, cruelest, most caustic and hard to handle of all of your alters.
You left us with Eve.
I still don’t know if you were excited to see your birth mother or if all that was just an act. Did you know from the moment she made contact with you what you were going to do? What you wrote to her in your first exchange was either quite tender or quite cunning. All this time later, I’m still not sure.
I am sure that I miss you, Penny. I really do. You’re my sister and I love you, and I always will, no matter how the court eventually rules, in your favor or not.
Over the year and a half you’ve been away, I’ve amassed pages about your case for my film diary. I know all the maneuvers Attorney Navarro has made on your behalf. I also have a detailed inventory of all evidence gathered. I can tell you this: the prosecution has a lot more of it than the defense.
Mom won’t say it often, but she’s mentioned it on occasion, the possibility that somehow you’re innocent. I call it wishful thinking, but there was a guy—Vince Rapino is his name—who piqued my interest early on. Rapino was something of a two-bit criminal from Lynn, same town Rachel lived in, who allegedly put crime aside to start an auto repair business. His name was on the lease to Rachel’s apartment, which is how the police found out those two were having an affair. Rapino was married at the time, but he wasn’t a suspect because he had an alibi, thanks to his wife. That is a bit unfortunate for you, because from what I’ve read of him he’s a real dirtbag.
Nothing about your case has produced any big surprises. You were determined fit to stand trial. The forensic psychologist who did the assessment wrote that you were manipulative, clever, quick-witted, and potentially quite dangerous.
Hard to disagree there.
The court ordered you hospitalized at Edgewater for your psych evaluation for twenty days, and that got extended another twenty, as the law allowed.
Your shrink at Edgewater was a guy named Dr. Dennis Palumbo, who we all despised. Well, maybe all but Ryan, because Palumbo thought the same thing he did: that you didn’t have DID. According to Palumbo, DID wasn’t even a real condition, and didn’t belong in the DSM. Turns out that what you have (or I guess allegedly have) is quite the polarizing diagnosis. There are no lab tests to confirm a case of DID, no genetic or hereditary component to use as a marker, and some experts believe the amnesia barrier, those vast memory gaps of yours, belong to the world of fiction, not fact. It’s thought that DID is just a variant of a borderline personality disorder, or in your case an antisocial personality disorder, and that the appearance of your alters is akin to fantasy play rather than a verifiable neurological state.
In short, Palumbo thought you were an expert liar.
You did take a polygraph test and passed. Later, I found out that those tests aren’t indicative of anything in your case. In your deluded mind you might believe, and hence convey it as truth to the machine, that you have no memory of
killing Rachel Boyd. You’re lying, but you believe it, so it’s true to you, even though it’s really a lie.
It’s enough to make your head spin. Or at least mine. I guess you’re used to it.
When it came to your chances in court, Navarro wasn’t nearly as gloomy and despondent as Mom. Juries have believed the DID defenses before, he told us.
He was right, too. I’ve studied those cases, a few examples at best. The highest-profile and most recent was the murder trial of Thomas Huskey, which ended in a hung jury. According to Huskey’s public defender, an alternate personality named Kyle had done the killings, not Thomas, who Kyle claimed to hate. Huskey was convincing too, employing different voices, mannerisms. Even his dominant hand varied depending on the personality. Kyle was left-handed, Thomas right A if it had been Mom or me on that particular jury in Tennessee, undoubtedly we both would have believed him, for his condition was chillingly similar to yours.
You were facing fifty years in prison, maybe more, and that, Penny, is only because of your young age at the time of the murder. Navarro, to his credit, understood his job wasn’t to add weight to Mom’s worry.
“We’re taking things a day at a time,” he kept telling us.
One day turned into another, and eventually it became a year and a half of your life spent in Edgewater State Hospital, locked up with the crazies, the violent offenders who didn’t belong in a regular prison. That didn’t make them any less dangerous, though.
While Edgewater may have been an ailing institution, a deplorable place to be, you asked to stay there, and Mom agreed. At least Edgewater had the veneer of a hospital, and you could receive consistent psychiatric care there.
That’s why Mom had Navarro petition Ruth Whitmore, the facility director, to allow you to continue your care and treatment there while the proceedings against you were still pending.
It was the lesser of two evils, Mom concluded, but I’ve visited you, Penny, and five minutes inside is five minutes too long. How you’ve survived all this time in that hellhole is beyond me. I guess you have Eve to thank for that.