The Dark

by Andrew Neiderman

  “That’s dirty pool, using my mother like that,” he said as he poured himself a bowl of Swiss muesli and cut in a banana.

  “I didn’t. I told her what happened and she came to her own conclusions.”

  “Maggie, I couldn’t testify anyway, knowing Lydia and Henry as I do.”

  She nodded.

  “If you want, you can visit with her some more and be sure Phil gets the right diagnosis,” she suggested softly.

  “I’m sure he’ll find a competent psychiatrist who will provide what Phil thinks is the right diagnosis. He’ll call Carl’s group or he has by now.”

  “I only want what’s right and true and good to happen. I feel just as bad about Henry as you do. I just can’t make any sense out of it and that makes it so much harder to accept, Grant.”

  “I know,” he said. He softened. “All right. Let me see what they come up with and maybe I’ll talk to her again this week.”

  “Good,” Maggie said. “I’ll call you lunchtime,” she sang as she started out. “Have a good day.”

  “You, too.”

  The house was quiet and then suddenly he heard the sound of blowers as the gardeners began clearing debris on the grounds of the house next door. Very symbolic, he thought. Here we don’t get rid of our dirt, we just move it into someone else’s life.

  In a real sense that was what Lydia Flemming had tried to do. What in hell was she trying to blow away?

  2

  It couldn’t have been a more appropriate day for a funeral. The late April Southern California sky was completely overcast with heavy-looking, bruised clouds and a cool wind coming from the northwest that actually had people buttoning jackets and putting their hands in their pockets. The church service had been long and, to Grant, too impersonal. None of the Flemming children were able to speak, of course. They sat stunned, reality settling in like a bad migraine.

  Carl Thornton asked to say a few words and spoke eloquently about Henry’s major contributions toward psychiatry, but that only made the mad thing that had occurred seem even more ironic. Grant thought that the minister, like any showman, played longer to a larger audience. The church was packed with other psychiatrists and doctors, former patients, lawyers, distinguished government officials, some movie actors Henry had treated, and members of the media.

  There were cameras everywhere outside, and some people were pulled aside to offer comment, especially the actors and actresses. Everyone spoke highly of Henry, of course, but no one could offer any explanation as to what had happened. Few had met Lydia or knew Henry on a personal basis. None of the psychiatrists cared to speak, except for Carl Thornton, who offered the cryptic promise that everything would be understood in due time.

  “We owe it to Henry,” he said, “to find an explanation for this seemingly illogical tragic act. But after all, that’s what psychiatry does: finds logic for the illogical.” His last statement was the sound bite.

  Most of the mourners who had attended the church service didn’t come out to the cemetery, but a good-sized group of fellow doctors and some patients did attend the service at the grave site. Grant and Maggie and Carl Thornton and his wife Joan stood with the family as the minister said the final words over Henry’s coffin. Afterward, when Carl and Grant were talking, Carl pointed out some of those he described as Henry’s newest patients.

  “That woman on the right’s family owns Grandos Jewelry on Rodeo Drive, and the short man to her left . . . that’s Jeffrey Brookman, the Bagel King. He’s in his own television commercials. You’ve seen him.”

  Grant nodded. Big-money patients. From the way they spoke softly to each other and remained close together, it seemed they all knew one another. One man in particular stood out, not only because he was tall, but because he had a very confident demeanor. He was good-looking, too, dark, distinguished. Grant noted how the others seemed to treat him with deference, turn to him to ask questions or listen to his remarks and then nod.

  “I’ll meet you at the car in a few minutes,” Maggie said when the minister finished. “I just want to talk to Camille.”

  “Okay,” Grant said. He and Carl watched her walk away.

  “What a nightmare,” Carl said. They shook hands. “I’ll call you.”

  “Right. Bye, Joan. Hope we meet at happier occasions soon,” he said.

  As Grant started toward his car, the tall gentleman Grant had noticed before stepped out from behind a tall oak tree. To Grant it seemed as though the man simply materialized out of thin air. One moment he was across the cemetery and the next . . .

  “Excuse me,” he said. “You’re Doctor Blaine, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” Grant said, turning.

  “How do you do? My name is Bois, Jules Bois. I was one of Doctor Flemming’s patients,” he said. “Very recent patients,” he added.

  Grant nodded.

  “It’s a great loss,” Bois said, his eyes shifting toward the grave and then quickly back to Grant.

  “Yes.”

  “He spoke very highly of you when we spoke about psychiatrists who practiced in Los Angeles.”

  “He was my mentor,” Grant offered. The overcast sky was threatening to let loose with a downpour any moment.

  “I won’t take up any of your time now, but I wanted to tell you that I intend to continue my therapy and I would be grateful if you would consider taking me on as one of your patients. It would mean a lot to me. As you know, it’s hard enough to develop a comfortable relationship with your therapist, comfortable enough to be productive, and just when I had done so . . . this,” he said, gesturing at the graveyard.

  Grant nodded.

  “Of course. Call my office and speak to my secretary.”

  Bois nodded and smiled. “We’ve all lost a good friend,” he said.

  Grant watched him turn and walk away. He saw Maggie at the car and hurried to meet her.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I was held up by one of Henry’s former patients. He wants to continue his therapy with me.”

  “Strange place to make an appointment,” she said.

  “Not any stranger than some of the places my patients choose these days,” Grant muttered.

  They got into their vehicle. When they arrived home, they found a message Grant’s mother had left on the answering machine, raving about how the Flemming case was capturing everyone’s imagination.

  “It could be bigger than O.J.,” she wailed, “and you won’t be a part of it.”

  He didn’t return the call. The rain that had started earlier grew heavy. He and Maggie went to bed soon after a very light dinner, eager to curl up in each other’s arms and watch some television. Maggie fell asleep first and he clicked off the television set following the evening news, which had a segment on Henry Flemming’s funeral with pictures of some of the celebrities who attended and Carl Thornton’s sound bite. It took Grant longer to fall asleep, which made it harder for him to get up the next morning. Maggie was nearly dressed and finished with breakfast by the time he appeared.

  As usual, she outlined her schedule, but she promised to come home early enough to prepare something special for dinner.

  “I suddenly feel a need to be Suzy Homemaker,” she said.

  “Fine with me.”

  Their lives fell back into their normal schedules over the next few days. Maggie kept him up on what was happening with Lydia Flemming and promised to show him the psychiatric report by week’s end.

  Grant went to his regular racquetball session on Thursday, but Carl Thornton didn’t attend. Everyone was still quite disturbed by Henry’s death, but Grant felt it was better to stick with his routine and sublimate all his anxiety, sorrow, and anger in his exercise.

  When he left the Club that morning, he could have sworn he saw Jules Bois, the man who had approached him in the cemetery. He thought he was standing at the far corner, but when Grant got into his car, the figure was gone. Later that afternoon, he had what he called another Bois sighting in the Stage Deli, where Grant h
ad gone for lunch. The place was always jammed and noisy, but had the best roast turkey sandwiches in town. He saw Bois get up from the counter and go into the men’s room. However, when Grant stopped in on the way out, Bois wasn’t there.

  That night at dinner, he mentioned his Bois sightings to Maggie and told her the man had made an appointment and he would be seeing him the next day. She didn’t know who Jules Bois was.

  “The man at the cemetery, the one you thought a little strange for asking me to be his doctor while at the funeral,” he reminded her.

  “Oh, yes.” She half smiled. “Why do you call them sightings?”

  “I don’t know. I thought I saw him, but . . .”

  “But?”

  “He wasn’t there. Thus, like sightings,” he quipped. “You know, seeing Elvis, James Dean . . .”

  She started to laugh, but stopped.

  “What’s the man’s problem?”

  “I won’t know until tomorrow.” He shrugged. “Stop looking so worried. I’m just imagining things. Who’s thinking clearly these days?” he added.

  She nodded and smiled, but still looked uneasy.

  Bois had a morning appointment. Grant thought the man moved with an almost liquid, easy grace when he entered the office and sat in the chair in front of Grant’s desk. He had a full head of auburn hair, brushed back neatly with just a slight pompadour, and striking dark eyes.

  “Before we start,” Bois began, “I have a few questions.”

  “Fine.”

  “As I understand it, you, like Doctor Flemming, are a Freudian, correct?”

  “Yes.” Grant sat back.

  “Oedipus complex, Electra complex . . . you subscribe to all that?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you place a great emphasis on the importance of sexuality in psychological development?”

  “I do, but I have room in my thinking for other schools of thought,” Grant said.

  Jules Bois leaned farther back so that the shadow deepened on his face and Grant could no longer see his dark eyes, which Bois fixed on him with a directness that demanded he be heard.

  “Good, because you may have a little problem with the Freudian approach as it applies to me. My mother died when I was born, so I never had an opportunity for an Oedipus complex,” he added with a small smile.

  “That’s not really a problem for me,” Grant began.

  “And my father and I don’t get along. In fact, he threw me out when I was in my late teens.”

  “I see.”

  “Are you sure this doesn’t present any problem with the approach you take?” Bois asked. Grant felt the man was humoring him, but he kept a serious expression, calm, refusing to be baited. It wasn’t unusual for a patient to begin with a combative demeanor. Therapy was a hate-love relationship at best. The voluntary patient wants to be cured, but a part of him wants to resist as well. It was Henry Flemming who first told him people are often afraid of being what we call mentally healthy.

  “Not a problem, no. I’m not one to pigeonhole people in comfortable little psychoanalytic slots.”

  Bois nodded.

  “I hope you don’t mind my inquisition. I just want to know what sort of scalpel you’ll be employing on my personality,” he added.

  “I don’t mind.” Grant smiled. “Is the inquisition over?” he asked after an appropriate pause.

  “For the time being. But I reserve the right to cross-examine you at any time I feel it’s necessary. If that’s all right,” Bois said.

  “You sound like an attorney.”

  “I have a law degree, yes. But I wasn’t satisfied with that.”

  “So what do you do now?”

  “I’m a consultant.”

  “Consultant? Legal?”

  “Legal, financial, even engineering . . . whatever. I am, in all modesty, a man of many talents.”

  “I see.” What Grant really saw was that details and personal information would be slow in coming. “All right. So, why do you believe you still need the services of a psychiatrist, Freudian or otherwise?”

  Bois hesitated and then leaned forward, his eyes brighter, a smile on his lips.

  “I have a compulsion. To state it simply, I enjoy causing, stimulating, encouraging others to perform illegal, immoral, self-destructive, and destructive acts. When I was a child, they used to call me an instigator. I need to explore the reasons for it and decide whether or not I should put an end to it. Can put an end to it, I should say.” He sat back. “If it’s a compulsion, I will need your help, correct?”

  “Yes, if it’s truly a compulsion—something that’s truly obsessed you and something you can’t control. When did it occur last?”

  “About five weeks ago.”

  “What did you get someone to do?”

  Bois smiled. “Recently, I talked someone into killing his wife,” Bois told him.

  “Killing his wife?”

  “Yes.”

  “You talked a man into murdering his wife?”

  “He went ahead and hammered on her head until she was dead,” Bois replied. “I suppose you could call that murder.”

  Grant wasn’t overly troubled about Bois’ revelation he had encouraged someone to kill his wife. More than one patient had confessed to doing things he had not really done, or at least things he had imagined he had done. But it remained on his mind when he joined Maggie, Phil Martin, and Phil’s wife Susan for dinner. He was nearly twenty minutes late, which normally in Los Angeles was on time. But they had all actually arrived a few minutes early, anticipating Grant’s usual promptness.

  “The normally reliable Doctor Blaine, I presume,” Maggie said, holding up her wineglass to show him she was nearly finished with her first glass.

  “Sorry. I had to hang around to make some phone calls.” He kissed her and sat down. “Hi, Susan.” He gazed with less warmth at Phil. “Counselor.”

  “Hi, Grant,” Susan Martin said. She looked like she had already had two, maybe even three glasses of wine. Grant knew Phil’s wife was into the sauce. He had commented to Maggie about it on more than one occasion.

  “Doc,” Phil said. “We’ve just been celebrating.”

  “Oh?”

  “District attorney decided to plea-bargain the Cronenberg case. I got a probation deal.”

  “Cronenberg. That’s the one where the stoned teenager drove his father’s Jag through the front window of a department store in Westwood, nearly killing a clerk and a customer?”

  “Yes,” Maggie said.

  “And the public interest the district attorney is sworn to ensure and protect?”

  “Served,” Phil snapped. “It was a victimless crime. Fortunately, no one did get hurt. We have a chance to rehabilitate this kid, a chance we wouldn’t have if he went to hard time. I can assure you of that.”

  Grant smiled.

  “You know, you might very well be the fastest gunslinger in the court. I didn’t even see that coming.”

  “What’s the matter with you, Doctor Blaine?” Phil asked. “You look a little on edge, and for a psychiatrist, that’s a serious thing, right?”

  “Stop teasing him, Phil,” Susan said.

  “It’s all right, Susan. I am on edge. I saw one of Henry’s former patients today.”

  “Oh? I guess most of Henry’s patients are having great difficulty dealing with his death, huh?”

  “I imagine so, Phil. Yes,” Grant said.

  “What’s this guy’s problem?” Phil asked. “If you can say, that is.”

  Grant eyed Maggie.

  “As long as I don’t mention names. He believes he is compulsive.”

  “So who isn’t?”

  “His compulsion is a bit unusual. He encourages, stimulates, advises . . . got to be careful about the choice of words around you people . . . causes other people to do immoral and illegal things.”

  “Really? A coconspirator, an accessory?” Phil lit up. Susan giggled.

  “Thought you might say that.”

>   “Did he do anything worth mentioning?” Phil pursued.

  “He said about five weeks ago he convinced some man to murder his wife and the man crushed her head with a hammer. Is that worth mentioning? What do you guys get for a crime of passion these days? What’s the going rate or . . .” He paused because he saw the way Maggie and Phil were gazing at each other. “What?”

  “This supposedly happened in L.A.?” Maggie asked.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t get into details. With new patients, it’s like walking on thin ice. Especially in this case. Why do you ask?”

  “Phil’s defending a husband who beat his wife to a pulp with an ordinary hammer.”

  “How do you defend that?” Grant quipped.

  Phil shrugged.

  “Everyone’s entitled to a defense, remember?”

  “How could I forget?” He looked at Maggie. She seemed very pensive.

  “What is it, Maggie?” She sipped her wine and glanced at Phil again. “Mag?”

  “I was going to tell you after a while. With Henry’s tragic death and all, I just. . .”

  “Will you just spit it out, for God’s sakes? Phil?”

  “His name is Dunbar, Clarence Dunbar. He claims his psychiatrist influenced him, actually encouraged him to do it, even suggesting the means.”

  Grant just stared until Maggie dropped the infamous second shoe.

  “His doctor was Henry Flemming.”

  Grant smirked.

  “You of all people know how ridiculous that assertion is,” he said. Maggie nodded.

  “But if someone would have come to you with the assertion that Lydia was going to shoot Henry, you would have thought that ridiculous, too. Wouldn’t you, Grant?”

  “Yes, I suppose so.”

  “Phil confirmed that Dunbar had been seeing Henry. He looked at Dunbar’s file. Henry had diagnosed Dunbar as paranoid.”

  “Oh. I see.” He smirked. “Dunbar believed his psychiatrist was out to hurt him, too, and Phil is thinking of using that as a defense? Is that it, Phil?”

  “Hey, if the psychosis fits, use it.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that maybe we’re all hopelessly mired in the excuse-abuse syndrome? Too many hardened, cold, and calculating criminals are slipping through our fingers, fingers we’ve greased ourselves with our distorted views of what’s right and what’s wrong?”