Stephen White - Blinded

I made a mental note to ask Diane how humiliated I should be. She had her finger on the pulse of things like that.

“Yesterday,” I said, “you were frightened enough of Sterling that you asked me to solicit help for you from Safe House. Today you’ve convinced yourself that the danger isn’t real. Which am I supposed to believe?”

“ Sterling doesn’t want to hurt me.”

I thought it was an interesting statement. Wishful, but interesting.

“Can you hear your own confusion?” I asked her.

“I’m not confused. I changed my mind. People do that. People react impulsively sometimes.”

Softly, I probed, “Gibbs, has Sterling not wanting to hurt you kept him from hurting you in the past?”

She sighed, gave me a little half-smile. I took it to mean that I’d asked another Dr. Phil question.

“If he hurt me now, wouldn’t that be like proof of what he did to Louise? He wouldn’t risk that. Sterling isn’t stupid.”

“And you are willing to run that risk? You’re willing to believe that, despite his threats, despite his past behavior, despite the fact that you’re accusing him of murdering a friend of yours, he won’t hurt you now?” I allowed a tincture of incredulity to enter my voice.

“Yes, I am,” she said definitively. “I am. I don’t want to go to Safe House. I want to go back home. Will you call the police in California now? Right now? I want to get that over with.”

“Why me? Why don’t you make the call yourself, Gibbs?”

“I can’t. Betraying Sterling to you is as far as I can go. It’s been hard even going this far.”

I sat silently, urging her to say more. She didn’t. The quiet stretched over two minutes or more.

Finally, I said, “But you’ll cooperate with the police and testify about what you know?”

“If they arrest him? Yes, I’ll testify. And if the police ask to talk with me before that, I will talk with them. I already told you that. I’m trying to do the right thing, Dr. Gregory.”

I recalled Lauren’s caution about spousal immunity. I wondered if Gibbs knew what I knew on that topic, that she couldn’t testify against Sterling in California, which meant that the police would have to develop substantial evidence on their own to support her allegations.

“If the police ask to talk with you right now? While I’m on the phone?”

“No. Not right now.”

I considered the fact that I had an out. Gibbs wasn’t keeping her end of the bargain we’d made the previous morning-seeking shelter at Safe House. I concluded that her change of heart abrogated my responsibility to keep my end of the bargain-calling the homicide detective in California.

In my own heart, however, I knew that I was still inclined to make the call to California, not solely because I’d told Gibbs that I would, or because of some absurd sense of responsibility I was feeling because of a hypothetical bargain I’d made with her.

I was inclined to make the call because it was the right thing to do. Why? Because of the murder thing. I could spend some unpredictable amount of time in therapy trying to influence her to make the phone call herself, but with an unsolved homicide hanging in the balance, it didn’t seem like a prudent plan.

I had received information about an unsolved murder; I was in a position to help the police close the case and put the responsible party behind bars. That was a novel state of affairs for me. But what made things even more unique in my experience was the fact that the screwy circumstances allowed me a rare ethical sanctuary: I actually had my patient’s permission to share information in my possession with the police.

That doesn’t happen very often in my business. I couldn’t think of another time it had happened in my career.

But sitting across from Gibbs, I wasn’t feeling free to act. What I was feeling was hesitant. Maybe I should have heeded the caution I was feeling right then. The caution was saying: Reconsider.

But I didn’t. Instead I stood, walked over to my desk phone, and lifted the receiver.

“I brought the number with me,” Gibbs said.

I placed the receiver back down. “I’m not as comfortable proceeding with the call as I would be if you weren’t planning to return to your home.”

Her shoulders sank a little. “ Sterling is what he is whether or not you make the call.”

“True. And I’m afraid he’s someone who may hurt you.”

“I don’t think so. He’s protective of me. I’m not saying it’s normal protectiveness, Dr. Gregory, whatever that is, but he’s protective of me.”

“Protective?”

“Yes. Very. Sterling is controlling. Very controlling. But he’s only touched me once. In anger, I mean, and that was… years ago. Many years ago. Are you going to make the call?”

“I don’t know.” I didn’t.

Gibbs shifted on her chair. She sat back, crossed one leg over the other, and rested one forearm on the other. Each hand grasped the opposing biceps. “Remember I said yesterday that it wasn’t only Louise?”

“Yes.” Goose bumps shot up my spine.

She looked away from me. “You can’t tell this to the police, okay? What I’m about to tell you.”

“Actually that’s not my call to make, Gibbs. It’s yours. You decide what leaves this room.”

“Then what I tell you from now on doesn’t leave the room. You can’t tell this to Dr. Estevez or to the California police.”

“Would you like to rescind your previous release in writing?”

I immediately wondered why I’d asked her that. I couldn’t remember ever making that offer to a patient before.

She made eye contact again. “No, that’s not necessary. I trust you.”

Somehow her assurance that she trusted me wasn’t the most comforting of news. I didn’t say “okay” or “fine.” I waited silently for what was going to come next.

It turned out that Gibbs didn’t need much time to hurdle whatever obstacles she faced about continuing.

“It’s not just about Louise. I wish it were. Although I think she was the first, it’s not just about Louise. My husband has killed a number of women. All over the country.”

With false confidence I’d set down the cards of my two-pair hand, and Gibbs had trumped me with the old serial killer royal flush.

Good advice.

“Do not wander from designated paths and trails.” That’s what the first sign said. It was a hundred yards back, where there was still some light from the visitors’ center.

“Do not go near any water.” That order was posted ten yards farther along the trail.

Now here she was breaking all the rules. She was off the trail. She was near the water. Beneath her bare feet she could feel the muddy ground begin to turn into something that was the consistency of wet, putrefied hay. The stench was sour. In the darkness the odor screamed at her.

Gritty moisture squished up between her toes.

She bathed twice a day. Every day. Morning and night. She detested filth.

And decay? Please! Shivers shot up her spine.

The night was moonless. Her eyes found streaks to focus on, but the streaks disappeared as soon as she tried to reel them in. She couldn’t see. It was the smell, and the feel of the rotting life between her toes, that convinced her that the swamp water was near.

And there had been one more sign. It had read, “Do not smoke or litter.”

She wasn’t breaking that rule. Five minutes ago, maybe. No, it had only been two or three. She’d been breaking that rule, sitting there in the car. Smoking, yes; not littering. Fantasizing. Had everything changed so much in two minutes?