Эд Макбейн - Snow White and Rose Red

“I’m sorry, I don’t—”

“Forgive me. you’re not as well versed on my insanity as I am. I’m supposed to believe that he loved another woman more than he loved me.”

“So, if I understand this correctly, sometime in the middle of August you supposedly confronted him with his infidelity—”

“Yes, so they say. And suggested all sorts of lewd alternatives to him.”

“And he died of a heart attack two weeks later.”

“Yes.”

“Then what?”

“The delusional system erupted full-blown. They say.”

“In what way?”

“You understand that this is all their bullshit, don’t you?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Okay. Ten days after my father’s death, Mark Ritter called to read me the provisions of the will. Those relating to me. He told me I’d inherited six hundred and fifty thousand dollars and that I was now a very rich girl. That was the word he used, girl . It irritated me then, and it still irritates me. In Mark Ritter’s sexist world, apparently everyone under the age of fifty is still a ‘girl.’ Anyway, I asked him how the rest of the estate had been divided—”

“You did ask this?”

“Yes, of course I — oh, I see. You mean, is this supposed to be part of my delusion? No, this actually happened. Because I was curious, you see. I knew my father was worth a fortune, and I wanted to make sure he hadn’t left the rest of it to a cat hospital or something. Mark told me that the bulk of the estate had gone to my mother. We’re talking almost a billion dollars, Matthew. Less the six-fifty I got. Which, as it turns out, I haven’t got, since my mother is now guardian of my property.”

“So you learned, on or about—”

“Matthew, this isn’t a court of law.”

“Sorry. Ten days after your father’s death, you learned that your mother had inherited the bulk of his estate and you had inherited the comparatively small sum of six hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

“That is what I learned, yes.”

“Then what?”

“That is what I actually learned.”

“I understand.”

“Well, here’s where the supposed delusional system comes in again. It’s difficult to separate fact from reality for you, Matthew, because they’ve contrived such a bullshit story about my imaginary illness—”

“By ‘they’—”

“My mother. And Mark, and Helsinger, and God knows who else. I’m sure Cyclops has to be in on it, or I wouldn’t be kept here, would I?”

I remembered what Helsinger had told me: “She knows with certainty that she is being persecuted, deceived, spied upon, cheated, and even hypnotized by her mother and/or people in her mother’s employ.”

“And they’ve all fabricated, you think, an elaborate delusional system—”

“And attributed it to me, yes.”

“But it doesn’t actually exist.”

“Of course not.”

“And this delusional system, when you learned about the inheritance—”

“I’m supposed to have gone off the deep end. First, I believed I was being cheated—”

“ Do you believe so?”

“Of course not. To begin with, my father didn’t have to leave me a dime. Where is it written, Matthew? Six hundred and fifty thousand dollars is more than I could spend in a lifetime. But in addition to that, a provision of the will makes it mandatory for my mother to name me the sole beneficiary of her will. In short, the money — all of it — will be coming to me, anyway, when Mother dies. So why would I have believed I was cheated?”

“What else are you supposed to have believed?”

“That a large portion of the estate went to his girlfriend. This despite the black-and-white evidence of the will itself.”

“You saw the will?”

“Read every page of it.”

“And no one else was named except you and your mother?”

“No one. But this didn’t stop me from embarking on a wild-goose chase in search of this imaginary woman Daddy was shacking up with — in my mind . That’s what they say I did. Please realize, Matthew, that all of this was reconstructed after the fact. None of it happened. But it’s all supposed to have happened before the night of September twenty-seventh, when they broke into my room and carted me off.”

“They say, do they—”

“That I ran hither and yon, trying to find Daddy’s girlfriend.”

“Which you didn’t do.”

“Matthew, you’re falling into the trap. Either I believed, still believe, my father was having an affair — or I don’t believe it, and didn’t then. If I’m sane, I didn’t go running off after a person who existed only in my mind.”

“And this was when? This alleged search of yours?”

“Shortly after I learned how much Daddy had left me.”

“Which would place it — he died on the third and Ritter called you on the thirteenth. It was shortly after that?”

“The third week in September, I guess.” She paused. Her eyes met mine. “They say I heard voices commanding me to find her.”

“ Who says this?”

“Schlockmeister. And Cyclops. And the staff psychiatrists here.”

“And of course you heard no such voices.”

“None.”

“Did not go looking for her, and did not — of course — find anyone.”

“How can you find someone who doesn’t exist?”

“How long do they say you were out looking for this woman?”

“Until the afternoon of the twenty-seventh. Which is why I tried to slit my wrists, you see. Because I couldn’t find her. But this is all bullshit, Matthew, don’t you see? This is what they cooked up when they decided to put me away.”

“Why do you think they decided that, Sarah?”

“Several reasons. One, Mother hates me,” she said matter-of-factly. “Why else would she be persecuting me this way? The night the cop came — it was a Thursday, you see, all the help was off — Mother herself cooked dinner for the two of us. ‘Your favorite, darling,’ she said. ‘Just a quiet dinner alone together, darling.’ She was deceiving me, of course. She knew all along that Helsinger had signed that damned certificate and that the police would be arriving.”

“You did not attempt to slash your wrists at about six o’clock that night?”

“I did not.”

“What were you doing at six?”

“Bathing. Getting ready for dinner.”

“Did Dr. Helsinger come to examine you at seven o’clock?”

“Mother and I were eating alone together at seven o’clock.”

“Where?”

“In the dining room. Where ? Where do people normally eat?”

“Was anyone serving you?”

“No, she gave the entire staff the night off. Because she knew what was about to happen, you see. Knew they were getting ready to spirit me away.”

“The psychiatrist who examined you at Dingley—”

“Dr. Bonamico, yes. He’s on the payroll, too. The same as Cyclops and all the shrinks here.”

“The payroll?”

“They’re being paid off,” Sarah said. “To falsify records. To say I really am hearing voices, hallucinating, whatever the hell, all in support of a delusional system Helsinger himself invented. Each time they hypnotize me—”

“They hypnotize you?”

“Oh, regularly. As part of my so-called therapy. To get at the roots of my illness, don’t you know? Each time they hypnotize me, they try to feed me the delusion. I was hot for Daddy’s bod, I suspected he had a lover, I offered myself to him, I went searching for the woman, tried to commit suicide when I couldn’t find her. They tell me I’m hearing voices that don’t actually exist — they have to tell me this? Don’t I know there aren’t any voices? Shoot me up with sodium pentothal, whatever, put me under, and feed me the line of bullshit.”