All of Us (ARC) Page 13
Ortega exactly the same way. Now I can only wish he was
there instead of the asshole I stumbled on to.
“I walked up and propositioned him, simple as that.”
“What did you say, exactly?”
The demand comes as no surprise and I give Halbers-
tam his cheap thrill. I’m careful to add just enough sneer to expose my disdain, along with enough leg to keep his attention where it needs to be.
“I didn’t have a lot of time, so I kept it simple. I stood right in front of him, looked into his eyes for a moment and said,
‘If you follow me into that alley, I guarantee you’ll come out with a pair of empty balls.’”
The dear doctor rocks back a few inches and I’m sure I
touched one of those closely held fantasies he’ll never make real. Fuck him.
“Short and sweet, Doctor. He hauled out his badge, which
he wore on a chain beneath his shirt, and demanded ID. I
produced our New York resident card, but it wasn’t enough
and he decided, all on his own, to run my name through a
database that included individuals committed in the past to
a New York psychiatric hospital. Carolyn Grand popped up
and now what was he gonna do? Am I really crazy? Can he
take a chance?” I grinned, displaying my hands, palms up.
“When in doubt, refer any problem to a higher authority, in
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this case Sergeant Brady, his immediate supervisor. Brady
questioned me for about ten minutes and I could see in his
eyes that I propositioned the wrong cop. If I’d been lucky
enough to run into Brady first, we’d be in the alley now, rutting behind a dumpster like stray dogs. That couldn’t hap-
pen. Too many witnesses. So, Brady eventually picked the
one sure way to handle me without it coming back to bite
him. He shipped me off to a locked ward at Kings County
Hospital. Let the shrinks figure it out.”
The dear doctor’s eyes jump around, from feature to fea-
ture, across my face, finally to the hemline of my skirt. I lean back in the chair, giving him enough space to enjoy his day-dreams. The gleam in his eye tells me that he liked my story, which contained several deliberate lies. What I actually said to the cop, for example, was equally blatant, but much less
offensive. I even added a touch of humor.
“I’ve got two hours to kill, baby. So, if you’ve got a place we can be alone, you can have me any way you want, fried,
poached, hard-boiled, soft-boiled or sunny-side up.”
In the end, it hardly mattered because the cop reacted in
the same way. And so did Sergeant Brady when he finally
arrived. But there was no gleam in Brady’s eyes when he
approached me, and no thought of rutting behind a dump-
ster. What’s more, I was gone before Brady called in the
paramedics, replaced by poor Victoria.
The dear doctor bangs away at his computer’s keyboard for a
moment before looking up. “Do you appreciate the risk you
took? Propositioning a perfect stranger?”
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“I took very little risk.” For once I tell the truth. “Take
this from a woman who’s been there. You don’t choose the
man who wants to slap you around. He chooses you. And he
doesn’t throw a rope around you and drag you off. He charms
you first, then flips the switch when he gets you alone.”
Dear doctor’s ready for me this time. “Even if I con-
cede that you’re less likely to get into trouble if you choose randomly, that doesn’t eliminate the possibility that you’ll choose the wrong man. And not someone who merely ‘slaps
you around’ but someone who’ll kill you.”
I give it a beat before responding. “I once read an article
about women who fly rescue helicopters into combat zones.
Bullets flying everywhere, rocket-propelled grenades fired
from rooftops. ‘This is for me.’ That’s what I thought. Or it would be if I had a remote shot at a normal life. Which, of
course . . .”
Dear doctor gets to his feet, looks at his notes for a
moment. Then he comes around his desk to perch on the
edge closest to me. I see genuine curiosity in his eyes and
I know I’m ahead of the game. I’ve challenged him, drawn
him to the line, but I haven’t pulled him across. Even if I
know, I won’t tell.
“In theory,” he says, “there’s no time limit for therapy.
Therapist and patient continue on as long as the sessions
are productive. Your case, on the other hand, demands an
immediate judgment. The detective who interviewed me,
though he refused to answer directly when I asked if you
were a suspect, said that he was ‘looking at anyone who
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had contact with Hank Grand since he was released.’ That
certainly includes you.”
“That’s true, but I only saw my father for a few seconds
in a supermarket. There was no actual contact.” I recross my legs, chin up, looking directly into his eyes. “But if you’re asking me if I killed my father, the answer is no. I couldn’t have because, you see, I didn’t exist.”
“Ah, the default response. I didn’t exist. Do you know
how many times I’ve heard that?”
“I wouldn’t know because—”
“Because you didn’t exist. I believe you, too, Eleni, but I’m not sure the review board will. In any event, painful though it is, I have to be frank here. Your continued freedom hangs by a thread. The judge and the doctors on the review board,
even the administrators at Kings County, they’re preparing
the statements they’ll release to the press if you’re arrested.
Statements explaining why they discharged you in the first
place.” He glances at his watch. “I want you to know that I’m defending you as best I can, but my opinion is far from bind-ing. If I were in your shoes, I’d find a good lawyer and keep a very low profile. Don’t give the board an excuse to pull the plug.”
I stand up. Time to go. The dear doctor’s startled at first, but then folds his arms across his chest.
“You seem to think we should be grateful,” I tell him.
“Thank you for releasing us from this prison you call a hos-
pital. Not me, not my sisters, not my brother. We know we
never should have been committed in the first place.”
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“That,” he declares with a quick shake of his head, “is
not what I hoped to hear. You’re telling me that you intend
to take the same risks in the future that you did in the past.
Would you please explain, before you go, exactly what you
hope to achieve?”
“Orgasms, doctor. As in more than one.”
I head for the door, thinking I’d gotten the last laugh, but the dear doctor’s a step ahead this time. He raises a finger, bringing me to a halt.
“One more thing before you leave, Eleni. You told me
that you couldn’t have killed your father because you didn’t exist on the night your father was killed. But if you didn’t exist, you can’t know what happened. You can’t know who
>
inhabited Carolyn Grand’s body, nor where they went, nor
what they did. Not unless someone confessed. Did that hap-
pen, Eleni? Did someone confess?”
“Not to me.”
“Would you tell me if they did?”
That brings forth my best and brightest smile. “Please,
Dr. Halberstam, do you really think I’m that crazy?”
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CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
MARTHA
Victoria’s been after me to call our lawyer and I finally
dial the number right after I finish lunch. Two off-
brand hotdogs courtesy of a food pantry. I don’t expect to
reach Malaya Castro on the first try, but for once I get lucky.
I’ve been half expecting your call,” she says once I iden-
tify myself.
“You heard?”
“Late yesterday afternoon, I received a call from, let’s
see. . . .” After a moment of silence, she comes back on. Her tone, as usual, is a bit too cheery. “A call from Dr. Plink at the medical review board. He told me your father had been
murdered and the board was concerned with your status.”
“What’d you tell him?”
“I told him that until you were arrested and charged,
Legal Aid would fight recommitment.”
“Does that mean you think we’ll be charged? That you’ve
spoken to the cops?”
Malaya laughs out loud. “Carolyn, the last thing any cop
wants to do is talk to a suspect’s lawyer. And besides, I only represent you on the medical issue.”
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“C’mon, Malaya, are we suspects or not?”
“Have they read your rights to you?”
I’m suddenly weary. Weary and afraid. I feel like the last
domino in a long line. I can hear the clatter of falling dominoes, but I can’t move. I can’t get out of the way.
“No, they haven’t.”
“Okay, bad habit, I sometimes speak off the top of my
head. You’re not formally a suspect until your rights are read to you. And maybe the cops have someone else they’re looking at. Maybe you’re barely on their radar.”
I draw a breath. Moment of truth, ally or not. Let’s find
out where we stand. “If necessary, can we say that you rep-
resent us?”
“You can ask for a lawyer at any time,” Malaya responds.
“You never have to talk to the cops. As for me representing
you, if the cops should read your rights to you, stop them
when they get to the part about you having a right to an
attorney. Tell them you want to exercise that right. That
should bring the questioning to a stop without you having
to call anyone. On the other hand, if you decide to talk to
them, and I sincerely hope you won’t, you should know that
they’ll probably lie to you. They’ll claim to have evidence
they don’t have, eyewitnesses they don’t have, video they
don’t have. And it’s legal, Carolyn. They’re allowed to lie to you until you don’t know up from down.”
I take a second to process the message. “And if we don’t
talk to them? If we tell them to go fuck themselves? What
then?”
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“In that case, if they have enough evidence to show
probable cause, they’ll arrest you. If not, they’ll let you go.”
She hesitates for just a moment. “Look, if worse comes to
worse and the cops don’t let up after you ask for a lawyer,
call me. I can’t represent you at trial or arraignment, but the cops won’t know that. If I tell them to stop questioning you, they’ll stop.”
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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
MARTHA
I’m still trying to process that last bit when someone
knocks on the door. I look through the little peephole.
There’s a man well away from the door, a cop. Not the fat
cop, the other one.
“Who is it?”
“Detective Ortega.” His expression doesn’t change and
his tone remains calm. Like he knows exactly who he’s deal-
ing with.
“What do you want?”
“Ms. Grand, would you please open the door. I’m not
going to bite you. I promise.”
I open the door and he moves a little closer. He doesn’t
have to shout now. “We met this morning as you arrived
for your appointment with Dr. Halberstam. You agreed to
identify your father’s body. You even insisted that I drive you to the morgue and back.” He glances at his watch. “Three
o’clock, right on time.”
Eleni strikes again. How she could have made the
appointment in the first place is beyond . . . No, that’s not right. Eleni wants to screw the cop and she hoped to be the
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one who answered the door. If so, they would have been a
long time getting to the morgue. But Eleni’s not here and she didn’t leave a note and what the hell am I going to do now?
“What if say no?”
I expect him to argue that I’ve already committed myself.
I expect a display of righteous indignation, but he simply
shrugs. Only his eyes give him away and I imagine him
hunched over his notebook later on, committing his evalua-
tion to paper.
“If you say no, it’s no. We’ll have to find someone else.”
He waits, I wait, we both wait. Until I feel an unexpected
impulse move me. I suddenly want to see Hank Grand’s
body. I want to see him cold, the blood drained from his
face. I want to look into his dead blank eyes and know he can never hurt us again.
“Yeah, alright,” I finally say. “I’ll go with you.”
Ortega opens the back door of his unmarked Ford and I slide
onto the seat. I’m wearing loose jeans, a pullover jersey large enough to conceal my breasts and a pair of beat-up sneakers.
Ortega has to know that I’m not the Carolyn Grand he met
this morning, but he’s not giving his disappointment away.
That alone rings a hundred warning bells.
I decide to keep my mouth shut. I won’t be the first to
speak. Neither, apparently, will Ortega. Except for a few
muttered curses—at a bus that could pull to the curb but
stops in midlane—he maintains a stony silence. Our route
takes us over the Brooklyn Bridge, then north on Centre
Street through the East Village into Midtown. There are
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lights on every block along with the usual obstacles. Double-parked trucks, Con Ed digs, new construction. I’m reacting
like I’m in a cab watching the meter tick, growing more and
more impatient with each delay.
I give up as we pass Houston Street, speaking for the first
time. I’ve shifted in my seat so that I can watch him in the rearview mirror. I’m expecting something, maybe a trium-phant smirk. But outside of raising his chin at the sound of my voice, Ortega’s expression doesn’t change.
“You s
poke to Dr. Halberstam?” I intend to make a state-
ment, but it emerges as a question. I remind myself that I’m Martha and I have to stand up for my siblings.
“Yes, briefly.”
“Did he tell you that we’re crazy?”
“You keep saying we, instead of I. Is there more than one
of you?”
“Halberstam didn’t reveal our diagnosis?”
“Dr. Halberstam was a base we had to touch. But shrinks
never give you much and neither did Halberstam.”
I know, instinctively, that Ortega’s playing me. He’s forc-
ing me to carry the conversation, dragging the words out of
my mouth. But I continue anyway, even though I feel like
I’m about to gush. Not my way, not at all.
“He must have told you something.”
“Only that you spent a few days in the Kings County’s
psych ward and you were now in therapy.”
“What about his attitude?”
Ortega taps the steering wheel with a finger as he consid-
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mostly hard reads. They’ve got this look, very professional, how can I help you, goodbye. But Halberstam . . . I thought
for a second that he seemed . . . I don’t know, proprietary, maybe. Or possessive.”
I let my weight drop to the seat back. Ortega nailed Halber-
stam, no question. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being manipulated. I want Ortega to know who we are. I want him
to know that meeting Serena one day, Eleni the next and me
today isn’t about playing a game. It’s not about deception.
And maybe I’m begging, too.
“Our official diagnosis is dissociative identity disorder.
There’s more than one of us.”
“That’s like multiple personalities.”
“Like that movie, The Three Faces of Eve.”
“I was thinking Split, actually. You know, where the multi kills his therapist.”
In a moment, we’re both laughing. Not for long and no
deep guffaws. Not enough to even put me off my guard.
Still, I’m starting to think I might actually like this guy. I watch him tap the steering wheel again, a tell for sure. He’s measuring his words before he speaks.
“Do you have like different names?” he asks.
“Look, detective, I just thought you should know what
you’re dealing with. The rest of it is our business. But, yes, we have different names.”