Caleb Carr - The Angel Of Darkness

Looking disappointed at not getting a chance to force this last information out of the Doctor, Mr. Darrow asked, “You were, in fact, ordered not to return to your Institute for a period of sixty days, were you not?”

“Yes,” the Doctor answered. “It’s not an uncommon action for a court to take under such circumstances. It allows the investigation into what drove the boy to take his own life to be conducted more freely and effectively.”

“And has the investigation turned up any answers to the question of why the boy took his own life?”

The Doctor lowered his eyes just a bit. “No. It has not.”

“That must be particularly frustrating, for a man who’s spent most of his life trying to help children.”

“I don’t know that it’s frustrating,” the Doctor answered. “Puzzling, certainly. And distressing.”

“Well, I’m no alienist, Doctor,” Mr. Darrow said, walking over to the jury. “But I’d say that puzzling and distressing, when put together, can add up to frustrating without much trouble. Wouldn’t you agree?”

The Doctor shrugged. “They might.”

“And a person who’s frustrated on one front might be tempted to seek satisfaction on another-at least, that’s how it’s always seemed to me.” Returning to his table, Mr. Darrow picked up a book. “Tell me-do you know of a Dr. Adolf Meyer?”

Nodding, the Doctor said, “Certainly. He’s a colleague of mine. And a friend.”

“Children seem to be an area of special interest for him, too, to judge by his writings.” The Doctor nodded silently. “I take it you’ve read what he has to say about children with what he calls ‘morbid imaginations’?” After another nod from the Doctor, Mr. Darrow said, “Maybe you could tell the jury just what that refers to.”

“Morbid imagination,” the Doctor answered, turning to the jury box, “is characteristic of children whose fantasies cannot be controlled, even by conscious exertion. Such children often suffer from nightmares and night terrors, and the condition can even lead, in its most extreme variant, to delusions.”

Picking up a second book, Mr. Darrow walked toward the witness stand. “How about these two European doctors-Breuer and Freud? Do you know about them?”

“Yes.”

“They seem to’ve made quite a study of hysteria and its effects. I confess I didn’t really know what that word meant, until I started in on this volume. I always thought it referred to overexcited ladies.”

Quiet laughter floated through the galleries at that, and the Doctor waited for it to calm down before he said, “Yes, the word originated with the Greeks, who thought that violent nervous disorders were peculiar to women and originated in the uterus.”

Mr. Darrow smiled and shook his head, putting the books down. “Well-we’ve learned better, haven’t we? Just about anybody can be hysterical nowadays. I’m afraid I may unintentionally have driven His Honor pretty close to it.” The crowd laughed a little louder this time, but the judge didn’t do anything except give Mr. Darrow an icy stare. “And I do apologize for it,” the counselor said, holding up a hand. Then he looked at the Doctor again. “But I’m interested in what these gentlemen-Breuer and Freud-have to say about hysteria. They seem to think it originates in childhood, like the morbid imagination. Doctor, is there any chance that Clara Hatch suffers from either a morbid imagination or hysteria?”

I could see the Doctor working hard to keep from scoffing at the question. “No,” he said. “Not in my opinion. As I told the state’s attorney, Clara has experienced what I refer to as ‘protracted hysterical disassociation.’ It’s quite distinct from the kind of hysteria Breuer and Freud discuss.”

“You seem awfully sure, after spending- how many days with the girl?”

“Ten in all.”

“Quick work,” Mr. Darrow judged, playing at being impressed. “How about Paul McPherson-the boy who killed himself at your Institute?”

The Doctor kept his features very still at the mention of the unfortunate kid. “What about him, specifically?”

“Did he suffer from those pathologies?”

“I can’t say. He was only with us a short time, before his death.”

“Oh? How long?”

“A few weeks.”

“A few weeks? Shouldn’t that have been enough time for you to formulate an accurate diagnosis? After all, with Clara Hatch it only took you ten days .”

The Doctor’s eyes thinned up as he realized where Mr. Darrow was going. “I attend to dozens of children at my Institute. Clara, by contrast, had my undivided attention.”

“I’m sure she did, Doctor. I’m sure she did. And you told her that the work you were doing together would help her, am I correct?” The Doctor nodded. “And did you tell her it would help her mother, too?”

“In a child like Clara,” the Doctor explained, “the memory of a terrifying experience causes a division within the psyche. She divorced herself from the reality of it by refusing to communicate with the rest of the world-”

“That’s very interesting, Doctor,” Mr. Darrow said. “But if you’d answer the question?”

Pausing and then nodding reluctantly, the Doctor replied, “Yes. I told her that if she could bring herself to speak of what happened it would help her-and her mother.”

“Helping her mother was very important to her, then?”

“It was. Clara loves her mother.”

“Even though she seems to think that her mother tried to kill her? And did kill her brothers?” Without waiting for an answer, Mr. Darrow pressed on: “Tell me, Doctor-when you were working with Clara, who first mentioned the idea that her mother’d been the actual attacker on the Charlton road? Was it you or her?”

The Doctor reeled back a bit, looking very indignant. “She did, of course.”

“But you already believed her mother was responsible, is that right?”

“I-” The Doctor was having trouble finding words: a rare sight. “I wasn’t certain.”

“You came all the way to Ballston Spa at the request of the assistant district attorney because you weren’t certain? Let’s try the question another way, Doctor: Did you suspect that Clara’s mother was responsible for the attack?”

“Yes. I did.”

“I see. And so you come to Ballston Spa, and you spend every waking hour with a girl who hasn’t spoken to another soul in three years, and you use all the tricks and techniques of your profession-”

“I do not use tricks,” the Doctor said, getting riled.

But Mr. Darrow didn’t pause: “-to get this little girl to trust in you and believe that you’re trying to help her, while all the time you suspect that her mother was in fact the person who shot her. And you honestly ask us to believe that none of your suspicions ever bled over into your handling of the child, at any time during those ten days?”

The Doctor set his jaw so hard that his next words could barely be made out: “I don’t ask you to believe anything. I’m telling you what happened .”

But again Mr. Darrow ignored the statement. “Doctor, you’ve described your own mental condition after losing Paul McPherson as ‘puzzled’ and ‘distressed.’ Would it be fair to say that you’re still puzzled and distressed aboutit?”

“Yes.”

“Puzzled, distressed-and potentially disgraced in the eyes of your colleagues, I’d think, if the investigation shows that Paul McPherson died because he didn’t get the amount of care, the amount of time, he needed at your Institute. For, as you say, you couldn’t give that boy your ‘undivided attention.’ And so he died. And then you come up here, full of guilt about the dead boy and suspicions about the defendant. And you find yourself faced with a young girl whom you can give your ‘undivided attention’ to-whom you can save from the fate that befell Paul McPherson. But only, only if there’s an answer to the mystery that’s kept the girl silent all these years. And so-you create an answer.”