Jonathan Kellerman - Silent Partner

“Did you ever tell him about Sharon?”

“He wouldn’t let me tell him anything.”

“If he had, would you have told him?”

“No. That was… in the past.”

“But eventually you did tell him.”

“Not until later.”

“How much later?”

“Years. She was a teenager- fourteen or fifteen. He called me late at night, caught me off-guard. He liked to do that. All of a sudden he’d completely changed his tune. All of a sudden it was imperative I be involved. Come in to be evaluated . Five years of going nowhere and now he wanted me on the couch! I wanted no part of such a thing- by then I’d realized that it was useless, her personality wasn’t going to change. She was the prisoner of her… genes. But he wouldn’t take no for an answer, kept calling me, badgering me. Dropping in to chat when I was entertaining guests. Pulling me aside at parties and telling me that she and I were a… what was the word he used?… a dyad . A destructive dyad . Two people on a psychological seesaw, trying to knock each other off. Her behavior affected mine; mine, hers. In order for her to stop doing all those terrible things, we needed to equalize our communications, find emotional homeostasis or some rubbish like that. I felt he simply wanted to control me, and I wasn’t about to give in. But he was like a… a drill. Kept at it, simply wouldn’t give up. Still, I was able to resist.” Prideful smile. “Then things got much worse and I caved in.”

“Worse in what way?”

“She started doing… teenage things.”

“Running away?”

“Disappearing. For days at a time- completely without warning. I’d send Ramey out for her but he rarely found her. Then, out of nowhere, she’d come crawling back, usually in the middle of the night, all disheveled, filthy, crying, promising never to do it again. But she always did.”

“Did she talk about where she’d been?”

“Oh, the next morning she’d be boasting, telling me horrid tales in order to make me suffer- crossing the bridge and heading over to the colored part of town, things like that. I never knew how much to believe- didn’t want to believe any of it. Later, when she was old enough to drive, she’d take off in one of my cars and vanish. Weeks later, the credit card bills and traffic tickets would start trickling in and I’d find out she’d been traipsing all over- Georgia, Louisiana, dull little towns I’d never heard of. What she did there God only knows. One time she went to Mardi Gras and came home painted green. I finally took away her driving privileges when she ruined my favorite car- a lovely old Bentley painted lilac, with etched windows. Henry’s gift to me on our tenth. She drove it into the ocean, just left it there and walked away. But she always managed to find a set of keys, be off again.”

One way or the other, Sherry would triumph.

No smile, now.

I remembered what Del had told me about the needle marks, said, “When did she get into drugs?”

“When she was thirteen, Paul had tranquilizers prescribed for her.”

“He wasn’t an M.D., wasn’t allowed to prescribe.”

She shrugged. “He got her those drugs. Prescription tranquilizers.”

“What about street drugs?”

“I don’t know. I suppose so. Why not? Nothing could stop her from doing what she wanted.”

“During this period, how often was Kruse seeing her?”

“When she chose to go. He billed me even if she didn’t show up.”

“What was the official schedule?”

“No change- four sessions a week.”

“Did you ever question him? Ask why years of treatment hadn’t improved her?”

“He… he was hard to approach. When I finally raised the issue, he got very angry, said she was irreparably disturbed, would never be normal, would need treatment all her life just to maintain . And that it was my fault- I’d waited too long to bring her in, couldn’t expect to wheel a jalopy into a garage and have a Rolls-Royce emerge. Then he’d start in again, pressuring me to come in for evaluation. She was getting worse and worse. He broke me down- I agreed to talk to him.”

“What about?”

“The usual rubbish. He wanted to know about my childhood, did I dream at night, why I’d married Henry. How things made me feel . He always talked in a low monotonous voice, had shiny things in his office- little toys that moved back and forth. I knew what he was doing- trying to hypnotize me. Everyone in Palm Beach knew he did that kind of thing. He did it at parties, at the Planned Parenthood ball- made people quack like ducks for amusement. I resolved not to give in. It was difficult- his voice was like warm milk. But I fought it, told him I didn’t see what any of that had to do with Sherry. He kept pushing. Finally I blurted out that he was wasting his time, she wasn’t even mine, was the product of some slut’s bad genes. That made him stop droning and he looked at me strangely.”

She sighed, closed her eyes. “My heart sank. Trying to resist him, I’d said too much, given him just what he needed to bleed me dry.”

“You’d never told him she was adopted?”

“I never told anyone - from the day I… got her.”

“How did he react to finding out?”

“Broke his pipe in half. Slammed his hand on the desk. Took me by the shoulders and shook me. Told me I’d wasted his time all these years and severely damaged Sherry. Said I didn’t care about her, was a terrible mother, a selfish person- my communications were perverse . My secretiveness was what had made her what she was! He kept going on like that, attacking me! I was in tears, tried to leave the office but he stood in the doorway and blocked me, kept hurling abuse. I threatened to scream. He smiled and said go ahead, by tomorrow all of Palm Beach would know. Sherry would know. The moment I stepped out the door, he’d call her, tell her how I’d lied to her. That broke me. I knew it would be the final straw between us. I begged him not to tell, begged him to have pity. He smiled, went back behind his desk and lit another pipe. Just sat there puffing and looking at me as if I were trash. I was whimpering like a baby. Finally, he said he’d reconsider on condition that I be honest from now on- completely open . I… I told him everything.”

“What exactly did you tell him?”

“That the father was unknown, the mother a tart who’d fancied herself an actress. That she’d died soon after the baby was born.”

“You still didn’t tell him about Sharon.”

“No, no.”

“You weren’t worried Sherry would tell him?”

“How could she tell him something she didn’t know? It was out of her head- I’m sure of that because she never mentioned it, and when she was angry she threw everything else in my face.”

“What if she chanced to open up an old Blue Book?”

She shook her head. “She didn’t like books, didn’t read- never learned to read well. Some sort of blockage the tutors couldn’t break through.”

“But Kruse found out anyway. How?”

“I have no idea.”

But I did: a college Careers Day, spotting his former patient. Discovering it wasn’t his former patient at all, but a carbon copy, mirror-imaged…

She was saying, “He bled me for years, the monster. I hope he’s writhing in eternal hellfire.”

“Why didn’t brother Billy fix that for you?”

“I… I don’t know. I told Billy. He always told me to have patience.”

She turned away from me. I doled out more martini but she didn’t drink it, just held her glass and straightened her posture. Her eyes closed and her breathing got shallow. A boozehound’s tolerance, but it wouldn’t be long before she passed out. I was phrasing my next question for maximum impact when the door swung open.