Jonathan Kellerman - Private Eyes

“Sounds pretty hectic.”

“It was wonderful,” she said, without a trace of smile. “Those were wonderful years.”

She removed her glasses, set her hands flat on the desk.

“So,” she said. “What are we to make of Mrs. Ramp’s disappearance?”

“I thought you could cue me in.”

“I’d like to take advantage of the fact that you saw her more recently than I did.”

“I thought you saw her every day.”

She shook her head. “Not for some time. We’ve cut our individual sessions to two to four times a week, depending upon her needs. The last time I saw her was Tuesday- the day you called. She was doing quite well. That’s why I felt it was acceptable for you to speak with her. What happened with Melissa that upset her so?”

“She was trying to let Melissa know she was fine, that it was perfectly okay for her to go away to Harvard. Melissa got angry, ran out of the room, and her mother had an anxiety attack. But she handled it- inhaled a drug she described as a muscle relaxant and worked on her breathing until she’d recovered.”

She nodded. “Tranquizone. It shows great promise. My husband and I are among the first to use it clinically. The major advantage is that it’s very focused- works directly on the sympathetic nervous system and doesn’t appear to impact the thalamus or the limbic system. In fact, so far no one’s found any CNS impact at all. Which means the addictive potential is lower- none of the problems you get with Valium or Xanax. And respiratory administration means you get improved breathing quickly, which generalizes to the entire anxiety syndrome. The only drawback is that the effects are very short-lived.”

“It worked for her. She calmed down pretty quickly, felt good about handling the attack.”

“That’s what we work on,” she said. “Self-esteem. Using the drug as a springboard for cognitive restructuring. We give them a success experience, then train them to see themselves in a power role- see the attack as a challenge, not a tragedy. To zero in on small victories and build from there.”

“It was definitely a victory for her. After she calmed down, she realized the issue with Melissa was still unresolved. That upset her, but the anxiety didn’t recur.”

“How did she react to being upset?”

“She went looking for Melissa.”

“Good, good,” she said. “Action-orientation.”

“Unfortunately, Melissa was gone- had left the house with a friend of hers. I sat with Mrs. Ramp for about half an hour, waiting for her to come back. That’s the last I saw of her.”

“What was Mrs. Ramp’s demeanor while you waited?”

“Subdued. Worried about how she’d work things out with Melissa. But no panic- actually, she seemed quite calm.”

“When did Melissa finally show up?”

I realized I didn’t know and said so.

“Well,” she said, “the whole thing must have affected Gina more than she let on. Even to me. She called me this morning and said there’d been a confrontation. Sounded tense but insisted she was all right. The ability to perceive herself as masterful is so essential to the treatment that I didn’t argue with her. But I knew we had to talk. I offered her the choice of an individual session or discussing it in group. She said she’d try group- the next one was today- and if that didn’t resolve things for her, maybe she would stay late and talk one-on-one. That’s why I was especially surprised when she didn’t show up- I’d expected it to be an important session for her. When the group took its midsession break at four, I called her at home, spoke to her husband, and found out she’d left for group at two-thirty. I didn’t want to alarm him but I did suggest he call the police. Before the sentence was out of my mouth, I heard screaming in the background.”

She paused, pressed forward so that her breasts rested atop the desk. “Apparently Melissa had come into the room- hovering- asked her stepfather what was going on,found out, and gone hysterical.”

Another pause. The breasts remained there, like an offering.

I said, “You don’t seem to like Melissa very much.”

She lifted her shoulders, moved back against the chair. “That’s hardly the issue, is it?”

“Guess not.”

Tugging, now, at her hemline. Pulling harder when it didn’t yield.

“All right,” she said. “You’re her advocate. I know child people get into that kind of thing all the time- perhaps sometimes it’s necessary. But that’s totally irrelevant to the issue at hand. We’ve got a crisis situation here. A severely phobic woman- one of the most impaired patients I’ve ever treated, and I’ve treated lots. We’ve got her out on her own, dealing with stimuli she’s totally unprepared for, having broken her treatment regimen- taken steps she wasn’t ready for, due to pressure exerted by her relationship with an extremely neurotic teenage girl. And that’s where my advocacy comes in. I have to think about my patient. Surely you can see that the relationship between the two of them is pathological.”

Blinking hard several times. Real color deepening the rouge on her cheeks.

I said, “Maybe. But Melissa didn’t invent the relationship. She was made, not born, so why blame the victim?”

“I assure you-”

“I also don’t see why you feel the need to pin the disappearance on mother-daughter conflict. Gina Ramp never let Melissa get in the way of her pathology before.”

She wheeled her chair back several inches, never breaking eye contact. “Now who’s blaming the victim?”

“All right,” I said. “This isn’t productive.”

“No, it isn’t. Have you any other information for me?”

“I assume you’re familiar with the circumstances leading up to her phobia- the acid attack?”

Barely moving her lips, she said, “You assume correctly.”

“The man who did it- Joel McCloskey- is back in town.”

Her mouth formed an O. No sound came out. She uncrossed her legs, pressed her knees together.

“Oh, shit,” she said. “When did this happen?”

“Six months ago, but he hasn’t called or harassed the family. There’s no evidence he has anything to do with this. The police questioned him and he had an alibi, so they released him. And if he wanted to cause trouble, he’s had plenty of time- been out of prison for six years. Never contacted her or anyone else in the family.”

“Six years!”

“Six years since his release from prison. He spent most of it out of state.”

“She never said a thing.”

“She didn’t know.”

“Then how do you know?”

“Melissa found out recently and told me.”

Her nostrils widened. “And she didn’t tell her mother?”

“She didn’t want to alarm her. Planned to hire a private investigator to check McCloskey out.”

“Brilliant. Just brilliant.” Shaking her head. “In light of what’s happened, do you concur with that judgment?”

“At the time it seemed reasonable not to traumatize Mrs. Ramp. If the detective learned McCloskey was a threat, it would have been communicated.”

“How did Melissa find out McCloskey was back?”

I repeated what I’d been told.

She said, “Unbelievable. Well, the child has initiative, I’ll grant her that. But her meddling is-”

“It was a judgment call and it’s still far from clear that it was wrong. Can you say for sure you would have told Mrs. Ramp?”

“It would have been nice to have had the choice.”

She looked more hurt than angry.

Part of me wanted to apologize. The other wanted to lecture her about proper communication with the patient’s family.

She said, “All this time I’ve been working on showing her the world’s a safe place, and he’s been out there.”