Land of Echoes

34

By the time Cree got to Ketteridge Hospital, she was almost in a state of panic. She'd been running on an adrenaline overdose for over an hour as she drove a borrowed Oak Springs School car to Gallup.

Inside, the front desk receptionist rang Dr. Corcoran's office, told her he'd be down shortly, and invited her to have a seat in the lobby. After ten minutes of pacing and fretting, she wanted to scream. Or to run through the halls to find Tommy.

After she and Ed had gotten back from her early-morning hike, she had showered and dressed and found she still had an hour to kill before she had to leave for her appointments. She'd used the time to read through the last of the materials Mason had given her.

And had gotten badly shocked.

It was one of Mason's own papers that made her break into a sick sweat of anxiety. In arguing that some apparent cases of seizure disorders, schizophrenia, or DID were in fact examples of possession, he had cited six cases in which conventional pharmaceutical treatment had not only failed to help the victim but had been directly counterproductive. The medications had made the sufferer worse. The reason was simple: Most antipsychotic medications had a sedative or suppressive effect, which Mason believed weakened the host personality's resistance to the invader. All victims of possession fought the parasitic beings attempting to move in on them, he said; treatments that made the patient lethargic or passive, or otherwise suspended his volition, gave the invading entity free rein. In each of the cases he cited, the damage had proved irreversible. Of the six victims, two had committed suicide and four had gone on to lifetime institutionalization. Of those, one had later been lobotomized and had never come out of a postoperative catatonia.

Cree had dropped the papers as if they'd burned her hands. She'd left a quick message on Dr. Corcoran's voice mail, hurried out to the car, and driven to Gallup like a madwoman, trying to figure out how to forestall any drastic treatment without telling Corcoran the reason why.

When at last Dr. Corcoran arrived, he was accompanied by a short, officious-looking man wearing a three-piece suit and a trim goatee. Dr. Corcoran wasn't wearing his usual benevolent grin, and the other man looked positively dour.

"I've invited Dr. Schaeffer to join us," Dr. Corcoran said curtly. "He's our head of neuropsychiatry, and he's very… interested in Tommy's condition. We've been consulting on pharmacological aspects of Tommy's treatment."

Without waiting for a word from her, the two men turned back into the corridor.

She caught up to them at the elevator bank. "Dr. Corcoran," she panted, "I have a rather urgent recommendation for Tommy that we need to-"

"If it's not too much to ask," Dr. Schaeffer chided, glaring at her, "can we at least wait until we have some privacy? We'll discuss this in my office, like professionals." He gestured at a trio of nurses who also waited for the elevator.

They rode up to the third floor in silence. The two men led Cree down a stretch of corridor to an office on the left, where they stopped and gestured her inside. Dr. Schaeffer came in last, shutting the door behind himself.

It was a small room, with one window overlooking the flat roof of a lower wing of the building and the surrounding parking lots. Dr. Schaeffer's desk was piled with folders, and shelves on one wall were stuffed with hundreds more, but otherwise it was a stark room, without the personalizing effect of family photos, art, curios. Cree automatically moved toward a chair to the right of the desk and then stopped as she realized that neither man had sat. Nor invited her to. Schaeffer positioned himself behind his desk, leaning forward and resting his weight on his knuckles; Corcoran stood at the other side of the room in his vulture's hunch, arms folded disapprovingly.

"You were saying? You were going to recommend-?" Dr. Corcoran prompted icily.

"Yes, do proceed," Dr. Schaeffer said. "We're very curious as to why you're here today."

Cree tried to quash her urgency, to sound professional and objective: "I wanted to speak to you about some literature I've encountered that may bear upon Tommy's treatment. In particular, the application of antipsychotic medications."

The two men exchanged glances. This would be Dr. Schaeffer's turf, but he didn't move except to raise an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"It appears that in certain cases the standard treatments can be counterproductive. That they can exacerbate symptoms."

"Cases of what, precisely?" Dr. Corcoran asked.

"If you have reasons to believe Tommy Keeday might have such a reaction, I'd like to hear them," Schaeffer said. "Of course, paradoxical responses are not unheard of. But I'd like very much to hear which specific cases you're referring to." He came around his desk, past Cree, and went to the file cabinet next to the door to fuss with some papers on its top. After a moment he spun back to observe her response.

It put Cree in the awkward position of having to turn her head back and forth to try to address both men. "I just wanted to urge you to allow me to conduct less drastic therapies first. Give talk therapy more time."

Dr. Corcoran cleared his throat. "We are very interested in just that, actually. As to just what direction your therapy is taking. As to just what you and the patient discussed yesterday."

"And I am still waiting to hear about those particular case studies," Dr. Schaeffer put in. "Chapter and verse, Dr. Black. That's how we do things here."

Cree started to reply, then stopped. She'd been in too much of a hurry to pay close attention, but now it hit her in the face: This was a hostile inquisition. Something had changed since yesterday.

A siren broke the silence. Outside, an ambulance sped up to the building and disappeared from view beneath the lower wing. Dr. Schaeffer took the moment to move so that he now stood in front of the closed door, leaning against it with his arms crossed.

"What's going on here?" Cree asked indignantly.

"That's precisely what we expect you to tell us," Dr. Schaeffer snapped. "As you explain why you're here today."

"I need to spend time with Tommy. I'm sure you'll both agree his condition is urgent. I was-"

"His condition is indeed urgent," Schaeffer agreed. "As you no doubt know, he had another crisis yesterday, after your session with him."

"No, I didn't know! What-"

"We were able to observe his symptoms quite closely. Clearly, we're witnessing a very unusual and extreme syndrome. Dr. Corcoran and I agreed that drastic pharmacological intervention was required immediately."

Cree caught her breath. Behind Schaeffer's accusing glare, she recognized the excited gleam of the clinician sensing a rare malady to study and experiment upon. The same hankering for the exotic case had fueled the epidemic of multiple personality disorder diagnoses during the 1980s. An opportunist would see Tommy as material for sensational monographs, book deals, TV talk shows. Instant celebrity in the psych world.

"What, exactly, did you two talk about yesterday?" Dr. Corcoran asked. "What did you tell him about our treatment plans?"

"What?"

"What did you tell his relatives?" Schaeffer asked. He seemed to huff himself up, making himself bigger, and Cree realized that he was blocking the door. A gesture of control and coercion.

"I didn't meet his relatives. I left before they got here. And I certainly didn't speak to Tommy about-"

"You have very interesting hobbies, Dr. Black. You see, we took the liberty of looking you up. We were most impressed with your credentials. But we were unpleasantly surprised to learn about your-what's the terminology? — 'interest' in the paranormal."

"I am involved with Tommy at the request of the patient and his primary physician, and I solicited as a courtesy this institution's permission to help with his treatment. I have in no way prejudiced the patient against your treatment of him, if that's what you're implying."

"We need to know-"

"I need to talk to Tommy. Now. You have my recommendation about antipsychotics." She hesitated as a terrible thought occurred to her. "Or, what, you've already treated him? Is that what this is about? You've already seen some reaction that-"

"Not just yet. We're-"

"Good! Now, unless you've got something else you want to tell me, I'm going to see him. Immediately." She tossed her head imperiously, vaguely recognizing Julieta in the gesture.

"You settle down, Dr. Black," Dr. Corcoran ordered. "I'll call security if I have to."

Cree glared at him and crossed the room toward the door.

Dr. Schaeffer only braced his legs and made it clear he wasn't going to budge. "What's your prescription, Dr. Black?" he growled. "Take him to a Navajo witch doctor? Is that what you're trying to do here? Or is it just that you want this one all to yourself?"

Cree drew up in front of him, outraged. In her peripheral vision, she saw Dr. Corcoran coming toward her from behind. "What I'm trying to do, Dr. Schaeffer," she hissed, "is leave this room. And if you don't get out of my way, I'm gonna kick your balls right up into your friggin' lung!"

His eyes flared in alarm, and as she made a quick move toward him he scuttled aside. Cree yanked open the door and stepped past him into the hallway. She looked left and right and only then realized she didn't know where she was in the labyrinth of the hospital, how to find her way to Tommy's ward. But she strode off toward the elevator bank, wondering how far Schaeffer and Corcoran would go to stop her from seeing him. The need to be with him, to do something to arrest the terrible thing happening to him, was overpowering.

She stopped at the elevators and slapped the down button.

"You won't see him, Dr. Black."

She whirled to see that Dr. Corcoran had followed her. He stopped in the hallway about fifteen feet away, as if afraid to get any closer.

"Yeah? Well, you scurry off and call security, and we'll see how it goes down. And when his condition deteriorates because of your treatments-after you've been warned by a consulting psychologist? — see what kind of malpractice suit comes down on you."

"No. You won't see him because he isn't there. Tommy Keeday is no longer a patient at Ketteridge. For now."

"What! What have you done with him?"

He took a step back and put up his hands, warding her away. "We did nothing with him. His relatives came and took him away. Late last night. Functionally, they abducted him."

Cree gaped as it suddenly came clear to her. They thought she'd colluded with the family to remove Tommy from the hospital. No wonder they'd seemed confused about why she was here today. In fact, his vanishing was the last thing she wanted. How would she find him again? How would she persuade his relatives to let her treat him? Any delay at all could be catastrophic.

"We've informed New Mexico Child Protective Services. They've got an investigator looking for him. They're considering bringing charges. I'm sure they'll want to talk to you, also."

"Charges?"

"This isn't the first time such a thing has happened, Dr. Black. But fortunately the law sides with science, not superstition. In a case as urgent as Tommy's, the law clearly gives presumptive power of attorney to us, not the family. This institution will assert its legal responsibility to care for a dangerously ill child."

The elevator dinged and the doors shushed open, but Cree couldn't move. "What… what will happen if they find him?"

" 'If? Oh, they'll find him," Dr. Corcoran snapped. "He'll be with one or another of his sheepherding relatives. The state will know where they are because all they have to do is go where the welfare checks are delivered. And they'll bring him back. But you'll never see him again, you can trust me on that."