Edward Lee - Succubi

There’s something on the outside that he feels he needs to do. Whatever it is, it involves the original delusion, and the original delusion involves the place of his original crime.

At once, he dialed Dr. Greene. “I have some impressions for you,” he said. “I don’t think Tharp and Belluxi have fled the state, nor do I believe they plan to. I think they’re heading for the immediate area surrounding Tharp’s crime scene.”

“Because Tharp’s not cured of the demon thing even though he pretended to be?” Greene postulated.

“Yes.”

“You think the delusion is still important to him?”

“Very important. It’s the sole motive for the elopement.”

“Okay, I’ll go along with that. What else?”

“Tharp will abandon Belluxi as soon as possible.”

“Because he doesn’t need Belluxi anymore, right?”

“Right. Tharp only needed Belluxi to get off the ward, and he’s probably regretting it right now. Tharp isn’t homicidal—my guess is Belluxi’s the one doing all the killing, and Tharp doesn’t want any part of that. Tharp’s MMPIs indicate a high order of morality.”

“We’re talking about a guy who buried babies. Morality?”

“Sure. Tharp didn’t kill anyone, he just buried the bodies. But he may kill Belluxi in order to prevent more murders. That’s my guess anyway. However crude, Tharp’s TATs reveal highly focused guilt assemblies and even ethics. Plus, now Belluxi is baggage to Tharp. For every minute that Belluxi is with him, Tharp’s goals are jeopardized.”

“What do you think his goals are?” Dr. Greene asked.

“That’s anybody’s guess. Tharp believes in demons, so who knows? But you know what bothers me more than anything else?”

Dr. Greene laughed. “Tharp’s pathologically obsessed with a delusion but he’s not pathological.”

“Exactly. And that makes me wonder.”

Dr. Greene maintained his laughter. “Let me guess. You consider the existence of demons as a possible reality?”

“No but maybe the base of Tharp’s belief is real.”

“The cult, you mean?”

“Why not? I just read in Time that there are over a hundred fifty incorporated devil worship cults in the United States. I for one don’t believe in the devil but I can’t deny the reality that there are cults that worship him.”

“That’s an interesting point,” Greene remarked. “Maybe Tharp really did belong to some crackpot cult.”

“And if that’s the case, you just answered your own question. Tharp is motivated by a delusion. The delusion is motivated by a cult. Therefore—”

“That’s what he’s returning to,” Greene considered. “A cult. There was never an investigation because the state NGRI’d him almost immediately. The state attorney’s office was satisfied that Tharp perpetrated the murders.”

“At least it’s something for the police to go on,” Dr. Harold pointed out.

“I’m going to give them a call right now. Maybe you’re right, and even if you’re not, so what?”

“That’s the fun of clinical psychiatry, isn’t it?”

“Actually, I’m only in it for the free pens and coffee cups… Yeah, I think I’ll tell the cops to keep a real close eye on Tharp’s hometown.”

“Where is Tharp from, by the way?”

“A little town about twenty miles north of the hospital. Lockwood.”

Lockwood, Dr. Harold pondered. What a coincidence. Hadn’t Ann Slavik said she was from a town called Lockwood?

«« — »»

“I don’t know,” Ann said. “It’s just that your grandmother and I don’t always get along. We don’t always see things the same way.”

“Like you and me?” Melanie responded.

What a comeback, Ann thought. But it was proof of her innocence—the simple way in which she perceived the truth and how she associated it to herself. “Everybody has disagreements, honey. We’ll work it out, we always do.”

How honest a reply was that? In a sense, she knew she had never worked anything out with her mother. Adversity was their only common denominator. Ann Slavik had become everything in life that her mother opposed.

You’re afraid of becoming your mother, Dr. Harold’s voice haunted her again. Had she really been repressing Melanie’s perceptions all these years, by condemning her alternativism, by objecting to her friends? It was times like this that Ann wondered if she had any business being a mother at all. She would have to try harder, she knew, much harder, to give her daughter the conceptual freedom that she herself had never been allowed to have.

Melanie would be staying in the last bedroom on the east wing. It had been Ann’s room as a child. When she’d left home after high school, her mother had changed it as much as she could, “To turn it into a guest room,” she’d said, but Ann knew better. Back then her mother had felt so betrayed she’d gone out of her way to remove all reminders of Ann—a subconscious punishment. She’d gotten rid of all the furniture, and all of her things she’d left behind. She’d even changed the carpet and the wallpaper.

Ann looked out the same window she’d ruminated through so many times as a child. The backyard dimmed in early dusk. How many times had she peered through this same glass in complete misery, contemplating a future that did not include this place at all?

“Can I see Grandpa now?” Melanie asked.

“Let’s wait. He’s not conscious very often, and he’s probably very tired.” The truth was Ann was afraid. She didn’t know how to prepare Melanie for the still figure in the room at the other end of the house. Sometimes the facts of life included the facts of death. “Tomorrow, maybe,” she said.

Melanie seemed sullen. She loved her grandparents. She didn’t understand, but maybe that was the problem. Ann had never taken the time to explain the real world to her daughter. Melanie had been left to interpret it herself.

“I’m going for a walk,” Melanie said. When Ann turned, her daughter was stripped down to her underwear and was pulling on jeans.

“I don’t know, Melanie. It’s getting late.”

“This isn’t exactly New York, Mom,” Melanie observed. “I doubt if there are any drug dealers or rapists around. You think?”

Ann frowned. She couldn’t very well blame Melanie for her sarcasm. She’s had a great teacher, she thought. “Just don’t stay out too late, all right?”

“I’m only going for a walk, Mom. I’m not going to join the circus.” Melanie pulled on a T shirt that read “Cherry Red Records,” then she grabbed her Walkman. “Why don’t you come with me?”

Ann hesitated. “No, you go, honey. I’m going to straighten up our room.”

“Okay. Bye.”

Ann went down the hall to the room she and Martin had. It was on the other side of the house, across from her father’s room. Again, it was little things that bothered her, insignificant things. She didn’t want Melanie out by herself. She didn’t want Melanie to see her father in his present condition. She didn’t even like the idea of Melanie’s room being so far from her and Martin’s.

Now she felt isolated. Martin had gone out earlier. “I need some air,” he’d said. “I’m going for a drive.” Ann wished he and Melanie had gone to Paris without her; this scene was a dice of strained proximities and discomfort. It was a family matter surrounding a family that had never accepted Martin and had never been sufficiently exposed to Melanie by Ann’s own devices.

There was no sign of her mother at all. Where could she be at this hour? Perhaps Ann and her father were the only ones in the house. Down the carpeted hall, a slice of light glimmered. Dr. Heyd said that her father would have a nurse. But no one could be found when Ann stuck her head into the cramped, warmly lit room.