The Girls He Adored

6

Irene Cogan had spent the rest of the morning administering the Rorschach and Thematic Apperception tests, and the hundredquestion Dissociative Experiences Scale, saving the personality index for the afternoon session-it took most people a couple of hours to get through the 567 questions of the full MMPI-2. But the clinical interview had gone so poorly that after a lunch break-the prisoner was taken back to his cell; the psychiatrist picked at a dubious salad from a roach coach parked on Natividad Road near the jail-Irene decided to make another stab at it before moving on.

“What's the last thing you remember before waking up in the car next to the-” She censored herself midsentence. The dead woman, she'd been about to say, but she didn't want to risk upsetting him with any charged words. “Before waking up in the car?”

“Making love.” This appeared to be the third alter again, the vulnerable one.

Making love. Irene wondered if those words had ever been spoken before in this lifeless room with its glaring fluorescent lights. “Go on.”

“In the backseat. Parked in a redwood grove. Sunlight in long thin columns pouring through the trees. She's kneeling-” His eyes grew dreamy. “Kneeling on the backseat, leaning against the rear window ledge. I'm behind her. When she leans forward, a shaft of sunlight catches her hair. She has such beautiful strawberry blond hair. I part it at the back of her neck and kiss her nape every time I-” His eyes closed; his belly muscles tightened, and his pelvis thrust forward in a humping motion. “And every time I kiss her she says my name.”

“What does she say?” Irene couldn't pass up the opportunity. “What does she call you?”

The prisoner's eyes opened; the dreamy look had faded, replaced by a cold, glittering intelligence. “Tell me,” said the alter who called himself Max. “I haven't looked in a mirror for a while- do I have ‘stupid’ tattooed across my forehead or something?”

Rats. “I'm sorry-please go on.”

“Thank you, I'll pass.”

“No, really. I apologize-I shouldn't have interrupted you.”

“Too late for that now,” he said coldly. But just as Irene was telling herself that perhaps she was the one who should have stupid tattooed across her forehead, the prisoner changed his mind.

“Christopher,” he whispered, leaning toward her as far as the shackles would permit. “She called me Christopher.”

“I see. Is that your name, then?”

“That's for me to know and you to find out.” Common enough childhood repartee, but there was something in the careful way he said it, in the steady, amused look in his eyes, that suggested something more to Irene. A challenge perhaps-or an offer, or an opportunity.

In order to take the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, Max/Christopher would need a hand free to hold a pencil. The deputy reluctantly agreed to unhook the cuffs from the chain around the waist, but left the wrists cuffed together, and insisted on remaining in the room with his can of pepper spray and his short-handled riot stick at the ready.

“There are five hundred and sixty-seven statements in this test,” Irene explained. “I want you to-”

“Like you said earlier, I know the drill,” he interrupted.

“I need to be sure that-”

“Don't insult my intelligence, Doctor,” he said, each word carefully measured. “Don't ever insult my intelligence.”

Irene handed him the blunt, soft-leaded pencil, and saw for the first time that the inside surfaces of his manacled hands were badly scarred. When he caught her looking at his hands, he started to clench them into fists, then changed his mind and opened them for her, palms up. She managed not to wince. His fingertips were bony, nearly skeletal-she could make out the shallow hourglass shape of the distal phalanges beneath the shiny scar tissue, and there were livid white patches of unlined skin stretched tightly across his palms.

“What happened?” she asked him.

“I had the bright idea I could put out a fire with my bare hands.”

“Those are grafts?”

“From the buttocks.” He laughed bitterly. “I suppose I should be grateful I don't have a hairy ass.”

“How old were you?”

“Old enough to know better.”

“It must have been terribly painful.”

“The pain was welcome.”

“Oh?”

“Guilt, you know. Burns hotter than fire.” Then, seeing Irene's eager expression: “And that's all I have to say on that subject.” He took the pencil in his left hand. “Ready when you are, Doctor.”

“All right… Begin.”

Irene checked her watch and made a note of the time-1:04 P.M. She also noted another eye roll and flutter-apparently one of the other alters was going to take the test. Or at least that was what he wanted her to think.

She'd brought along several journals to read, under the assumption that the MMPI would take at least two hours, but she'd scarcely finished the latest edition of the American Journal of Psychiatry when the prisoner announced that he was done.

Again Irene checked the time-2:02-and shook her head disbelievingly. “You do understand that if you answered randomly, it'll show up on the results.”

“The F scale, I believe.” He grinned proudly. “Give me another one.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Let me take another MMPI-did you bring another?”

“Yes, but-”

“Let me do it again.”

“But why?”

He leaned forward; the deputy, seated behind and to the side of the prisoner, half rose from his chair.

“You'll find out,” whispered the prisoner. Then, in case she hadn't made the connection, he whispered the words again. “You'll.. find… out.”

As in: That's for me to know and you to find out. Irene reached into her suitcase and brought out another answer sheet.

The prisoner finished the second MMPI in just over an hour. He had again switched alters both before and after the test, but kept his head down diligently during it, so Irene couldn't read him.

“How long will it take you to get the results back?” he asked, as the deputy once again fastened the prisoner's wrists to the chain around his waist, then left the room carrying his folding chair.

“Back?”

“Yes, back. You do send them out, don't you? To get them scored? Or do you do them yourself?”

Irene sidestepped the question. “Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering how long until our next session.”

“At this point, I can't even tell you whether there'll be a next session. I may not need to see you again to perform my evaluation-it depends in large part on the test results.”

“I'm not worried about that,” he replied confidently. “Once you get the results back, you'll want to interview me again-I guarantee it.”

“Oh? And why is that?”

“Because you've never seen anything like me.”

“In that case,” said Irene, “I'll be sure to pay particular attention.”

“I'll be sure to pay par-tic-u-lar atten-shee-un.” Again, the devastatingly accurate imitation, this time with a petulant twist. Then, in his own voice: “Don't patronize me, Dr. Cogan. I haven't done anything to deserve that tone from you.”

“You're right, and I apologize,” said Irene promptly. “I'll be evaluating the tests tonight-if I need a follow-up interview, it'll probably be within a day or two.”

“I'll be looking forward to it,” said the prisoner.

For the first time that day, Irene turned her back to him as she lifted the receiver of the black telephone on the wall.

“We're about done here,” she told the female deputy who picked up on the other end. The woman told her someone would be right in. When Irene turned around again she had the impression she was meeting yet a fourth alter-his posture had slumped, as if he were suddenly exhausted, and he had developed a mild tic in his right eye.

“There ih-ih-is one thing,” he said-the stammer on the initial vowel sounds was new. “If it were possible, if circumstances were uh-uh-altered, so to speak, would you consider taking uh-us ahahon a-as uh-uh-a patient?”

“I'm not terribly comfortable with hypotheticals,” said Irene, her suspicions heightened-true multiples, who'd spent their entire lives trying to disguise their dissociated identities, rarely used the first person plural until after months of therapy, if then. She hauled her leather briefcase onto the desk and began to pack up her things. “In any event, I wouldn't be able to say for sure until after I'd reached a working diagnosis. I have a small, rather specialized practice, and I couldn't tell you at this point whether you fit the parameters. I can tell you this much, though-I couldn't treat a patient who doesn't trust me enough to even give me his name.”

“Fair eh-eh-enough,” replied the prisoner. Another eye roll, another alter switch, as the deputy entered the room behind him. Then, in a whisper: “By the way, next session, if you get a chance, maybe you could pick up a pack of Camel straights on your way over. There's not enough nicotine in those Benson and Hedges to pacify a lab rat.”

“Maybe,” said Irene. “If there is a next time.”

“Thanks,” he said hurriedly, as the deputy tapped him on the shoulder.

“On your feet, Doe-let's go.”

“Whatever you say, boss-you're the ace with the Mace.”

“Good-bye, Christopher,” Irene said, snapping her briefcase shut. She wanted to see how he would react to the name.

“Call me Max,” he said with a wink, shuffling toward the door with the deputy at his elbow.

“Good-bye, Max.” Irene wasn't sure what, if anything, she'd learned from this latest gambit.

The prisoner turned and and gave her another wink, broader this time. “Good night, Irene,” he called, as his guard hustled him out the door. “See you in my dreams.”