Ed Gorman - Voodoo Moon

Back in the first days of the prairie, the government had trouble rounding up soldiers to fight the various Indian wars. This was particularly true of the Black Hawk Wars in 1832 and the Civil War.

That's when they got a very bright idea. In addition to wages, the soldiers would be given land. In Iowa. All the way up to 120 acres. This served two purposes. The army got soldiers (or cannon fodder, depending on your point of view), and Iowa, not exactly teeming with new arrivals, got new voters and taxpayers.

The land back then was about $1.25 an acre. A hundred dollars could buy you a very nice farm. You'd stack rocks as a fence meant to define the dimensions of your land, and then you'd build yourself a soddy-a house made of sod-and then you'd move in. If disease, flood, or prairie fire didn't get you, you could have yourself a nice, ass-busting life for you and your family.

On my drive up to see Dr. Williams, I looked at prairie land that had undoubtedly been the site of soddies. Nearby creek. Plenty of timberland for firewood. Rich black earth for planting. Of course, the Big Mac billboard probably hadn't been there in the distance.

Nor the small airport to the east, a small plane just now landing in some turbulent air. Nor the TV tower beaming forth mediocrity twenty-four hours a day. There was always something to spoil the idyllic vision I had of pioneer days. I wanted to crawl into one of those pulpy old book covers of the brave musket-carrying mountain man and his flaxen-haired immigrant woman surveying a beautiful valley just at gorgeous sunset.

The hospital was located on a hill overlooking a valley, all right. But the valley was filled with two strip malls, a high school football stadium, and a truck depot. To make things even worse, I didn't have a flaxen-haired immigrant woman with me.

If you faced away from the valley, you had a very different sense of the area. A much nicer one. Oaks and hardwoods surrounded three large brick buildings. A swimming pool, tennis courts, and a picnic area lay to the west of the buildings. Nurses in crisp white uniforms watched over a variety of adults engaged in various quiet endeavors such as checkers, chess, badminton, and volleyball. Oddly, nobody was in the pool-the temperature was in the seventies-nor was anybody playing tennis.

A sign, black letters on white, read ADMINISTRATION. I parked in the visitors' area and went inside. It had that smell, that feel, that aura of all bureaucracies. Busy busy. Even people with the brightest souls would be blanched to an administrative gray after a few months of working here. Each little office group would have its gossip, its victim, its slacker. Each group head would have his or her secret, a drinking problem, an adultery problem, a money problem, a son or daughter with a law problem. Some of the nurses would be sleeping with some of the doctors. And some of the lesser staffers would be sleeping with some of the other lesser staffers, hoping someday to be sleeping with some of the doctors, thereby enjoying a new status. Every year at the Christmas party somebody would jump up on a desk and announce that this wonderful group of folks was the best fucking wonderful group of folks in the wide world-pardon my French, ladies-and he was goddamned proud to be a goddamned part of it. The more emotional would cry; the more sensible would want to fill a barf bag. But Christmas was three months away, this was still Indian summer, and a workday, and so busy busy was what was going on here, busy busy the computer keyboards, the ranks of phone consoles, the clack of high heels on polished floors.

While I was waiting for Dr. Williams-I'd called half an hour ahead for an appointment and was told I could have fifteen minutes-I read up on psychology magazines. The current obsession in psychiatric circles seemed to be the growing reaction to "recovered memory" cases. I hadn't paid all that much attention to the subject until a California jury put a man in prison for a murder of twenty-five years earlier, a murder his eight-year-old daughter claimed to suddenly remember eleven months before the trial started. Her father had, she said, murdered her best little friend. There was no physical evidence; there were no witnesses. Simply the woman saying that yes, after several visits to a "recovered memory" psychologist, she suddenly recalled what her father had done. The verdict scared the hell out of me. The judiciary has enough trouble ascertaining the truth-thanks to things like new DNA testing that helped free eleven men on Illinois's death row, proving that the system is hardly infallible-we certainly don't need "recovered memory" cases making things even worse. Under the guidance of a clever shrink, you can "remember" virtually anything he wants you to.

Dr. Williams looked much as he had yesterday, a short, stout man who vaguely resembled Albert Einstein. Good, firm grip. Nice, quick smile. Then he led me inside.

The walls were a testimonial to his brains, pluck, and talent. Scroll after scroll, plaque after plaque, degree after degree-all arranged imposingly on the same wall-attested to his magnificence. The furnishings were cherry wood and in such good taste you almost wanted something vulgar-a screaming orange canvas chair-to liven them up.

"I'm sorry I'm in such a hurry today. We have six new patients arriving and that's always our busiest time."

Busy busy.

"That's fine. All I really want to know is if you saw Sandy when she was alive."

"Saw her in what sense?"

"I'm sorry. I mean 'saw' her in a professional sense."

He nodded. "Yes. Twice. I asked her to come once with Rick and once without him."

"Did she open up to you?"

He shrugged. "To some degree, I suppose. She was very nervous. Her father was angry that she was here. She said he hated the whole notion of her being here."

"I'm told that her father used to take nude photos of her."

He half smiled. "You really are a cop, aren't you, Mr. Payne?"

"I used to be. Now I'm just sort of a glorified field investigator."

He leaned forward. He had stubby arms. He pulled his chair flush against his desk. "You know I can't discuss what my clients told me."

"The shrinks I knew at Quantico did. In fact, they never shut up. They were always swapping stories about who had the weirder patients."

He frowned. "Very unprofessional. I know it goes on. But I certainly don't approve. I'm from the old school-when it meant something to be a so-called shrink. Now anybody who can finish a few night school courses can go into the counseling business."

"Did you ever talk with the father?"

"No. He called once and was vaguely threatening, said he'd sue me if I saw his daughter again. I have to admit, he did seem like a man who had a secret."

"Afraid his daughter might tell you something about him, you mean."

"Exactly. I understand that there are people who don't believe in psychiatry, and people whose religion forbids them from seeing a shrink, and people who think it doesn't work and costs too much money-all the familiar objections. But he was too strident. So the only thing I could think of was that he had something to hide." He smiled. "Shrinks have very suspicious natures, I'm afraid."

"I'm going to go see him."

"I'm told he's a very violent man. I know he was arrested a while back for public intoxication. And he managed to knock out two policemen before they could restrain him."

"Great. Just what I want. A fistfight."

The intercom buzzed. "Mr. Alexander has arrived," his secretary said. "You asked me to tell you."

"Thank you, Beverly." He tapped his Seiko. "I guess I'm even busier than I thought. We didn't expect Alexander until late this afternoon."

He stood up and came around his desk and shook my hand. "Rick's parents aren't wealthy by any means. In fact, they're almost poor. I have a lot of faith in Iris Rutledge, but she can't afford to hire any outside help. I'm giving her all the money I can, but my resources are limited, too. Some people are very skeptical of Tandy West trying to build a show around this. But I guess I should be grateful she is because we're getting a very good investigator in the bargain-and we don't have to pay for him." Then, a little dramatically, he said, "My only concern is Rick. He's innocent."