Stephen White - Missing Persons

The letter that I’d mailed the day before I met with Bill Miller?

The head of the Ethics Committee of the Colorado Psychological Association didn’t know exactly what to do with it.

Psychologists don’t usually turn themselves in for ethical violations.

But I did; I turned myself in for multiple violations of the ethical code of the American Psychological Association.

There’s a psychological phenomenon, an ego defense if you will, called undoing, or sometimes, doing-undoing. A husband sends flowers to his wife the day after he flirts shamelessly with his secretary. A mother makes a special dessert for her daughter after she sentences the kid to death row for not putting the cap back on a tube of toothpaste. It’s unconscious psychological misdirection-the substitution of an act that is acceptable to the ego for something that was not. In the world of psychological defenses, it’s the great cosmic chalkboard eraser.

Turning myself in for unethical conduct was my own twisted version of doing-undoing.

What I’d prepared and submitted to the ethics board was a detailed account of my multiple professional transgressions in the clinical care of both Bill Miller and Bob Brandt. Although I had to withhold plenty of specifics-including my patients’ names-I put in sufficient evidence of misjudgment to make my myriad ethical lapses crystal clear to my colleagues.

I’d also sought written permission from both Bob and Bill to release their names to the ethics investigators, but both, not surprisingly, chose anonymity and declined to participate in the inquiry. Neither was eager to prolong public scrutiny of their behavior. Without the cooperation of the patients involved the board had little to go on other than my self-damning appraisal of my own professional conduct.

The head of the board phoned and asked me, mildly exasperated, what I thought they should do with me.

I suggested a sanction: a full year’s monitored supervision of my practice by a senior, respected psychologist.

The board greedily concurred, content to have the matter behind them.

I felt a little better, but not much. As an ego balm, doing-undoing is a notoriously ineffective palliative. And when you know you’re doing it-and employ it without the insulation of unconscious motivation-as I was, undoing amounts to little more than a half-hearted mea culpa .

Bob?

Our regular Tuesday at 4:15 came around slightly less than forty-eight hours after he and Mallory had been picked up by the police in the plasma physics reception area in the Duane Building at CU. Mallory was watching Bob deadhead his Christmas begonia when the first few SWAT officers burst into the room and scared the crap out of both of them.

Head down, as usual, he walked into my office for his appointment at the regular time. He plopped his backpack onto the floor and sat across from me without a word of greeting.

We’d been there, literally, a hundred times before.

Bob had spent one night stewing in police custody while Cozy Maitlin convinced the authorities that his client was guilty of nothing more than piss-poor judgment. Mallory had repeatedly denied that Bob had ever coerced her to do anything, denied that he encouraged her to run away, vigorously maintained that the road trip had been her idea, and asserted that he’d never placed a hand on her during their entire time together. Mallory’s only actual complaints about Bob were that he wasn’t very friendly and hardly ever said a word that wasn’t about cars or board games.

Rachel Miller confirmed that Bob had been a well-behaved, if boring, companion to her and her daughter.

The police discovered no evidence to the contrary. None.

I waited only a moment for him to settle onto his chair before I said, “Hello.”

He was staring at his hands. I supposed that Bob knew that I had arranged for Cozy to represent him. Although Bob Brandt and Cozier Maitlin were probably the oddest client-attorney pairing since Michael Jackson and anybody, I suspected that Cozy would have told Bob how lucky he was to have him for a lawyer. I doubted Bob would mention it to me, and I wondered if I should bring it up if he didn’t.

“Am I going to be charged?” he said, finally breaking the silence, and interrupting my reverie long before I’d reached anything approximating a decision.

With kidnapping? Didn’t look like it, but that was definitely a question that should be directed to Cozy, not to me. It was my turn, though, so I said, “Charged for what?”

“For last week.”

Oh. “The session you missed? No, I won’t bill you for that.”

Bob acknowledged me with a nod, but he didn’t thank me. Did I expect him to? No, not really.

When he finally raised his face enough so that I could see it, I spotted a cold sore the size of a lug nut on his lower lip. The rounded wound was fresh and blistered. Had to hurt. I thought, Stress . He didn’t speak again for a while. Then, “I almost lost my job. It was stupid.”

“What was stupid?” I could have asked. But the recent idiocy options were numerous. Too numerous. Plenty by him, plenty by me.

More by him.

I waited. The Kinko’s box sat beside me on the small table next to my chair. Had Bob seen it when he walked in? I hadn’t noticed him even glancing in my direction.

“She asked. I didn’t kidnap her. Sheesh.”

No half head-shake, just the “sheesh.”

Although technically it was my turn to speak, Bob said, “I shouldn’t have shown her the tunnel in the first place.”

I could have argued with him at that point, suggesting that maybe what he shouldn’t have done was drive a minor who was the subject of a national manhunt across state lines, but time was on my side. An entire year of Tuesdays littered the calendar ahead. Bob and I would get there eventually.

“She was scared after that therapist died,” he said. “I thought she should know how to get out of her house.”

His tone, I thought, was defensive, which wasn’t too surprising. But was Mallory’s fear really the way Bob was going to try to rationalize his decision to help her stay hidden when the whole world was frantically looking for her? I suspected not.

Why? Pulling off that argument would require that Bob convince me that he’d suddenly developed a capacity for empathy. Sadly, the events of the previous couple of weeks would no more leave Bob with empathy than they would leave Bill Miller with a well-functioning superego. “Go on,” I said.

He sighed before he turned away, reached down, and rooted around in his rucksack. He lifted out an electronic device about the size of a paperback book and held it up for me to see.

I couldn’t help but smile. It was a fancy, programmable remote control. The one from Doyle’s basement, no doubt.

“Perhaps you should give that to your attorney,” I suggested.

He stuffed the remote back into the daypack and gazed out the window. The southern sky warned of dusk. He said, “She doesn’t look fourteen.”

My spleen didn’t spasm. I allowed the force of gravity to press me solidly against my chair.

“Tell me,” I said.

I thought I’d try to be a therapist for a while.

As usual, I got a lot of help.

My gratitude to the kind, talented people at Dutton, especially Carole Baron and Brian Tart, and to my agent, Lynn Nesbit.

Jane Davis, Elyse Morgan, and Al Silverman continue to support me in ways that are personal as well as professional. I’ve said thanks. I’ll say it again, knowing it’s not enough. Nancy Hall, once more, brought her critical eye to the process.

If I wore one, I’d tip my hat to Virginia Danna and Darrell C. R. Olson, Sr. Call it courage, call it blind faith, but they paid good money to charity to have their names used for characters in this book. I think I’ll just call it generosity. Norm Clarke, on the other hand, was a draftee. His gracious, one-of-a-kind introduction to Las Vegas and his willingness to let me give him an important role in the story were much appreciated.