Second Honeymoon

Chapter 78

I’LL GIVE THE doctor this: he certainly had our full attention.

Drummond leaned forward in the armchair, clasping his hands. “Ned was caught in his office on campus masturbating to a picture of a young woman,” he explained.

Sarah barely batted an eyelash. “One of his students?” she asked.

“Worse, if you can imagine,” he said. “It was a picture of Nora.”

Okay, that’s a different story. We just took a right turn onto Weird Avenue. And depending on what picture it was, I might have to go wash my hands.

Drummond continued, “It’s called a psychosexual fixation disorder. It’s rare among siblings, but it does happen.”

“And you continued to counsel him after the incident?” Sarah asked.

“Yes. At least I tried to,” he said. “The fact that Nora was dead, though, made it more difficult. Not only was he fixated on her but, as you might imagine, he also became obsessed with the question of who killed her. He claimed he knew who it was.”

“Did he actually give you a name?” I asked.

“No, and that was the worst part,” he said. “He kept insisting that he was going to take care of it himself.”

“It?” repeated Sarah. “Like he was planning to kill the guy?”

“That’s the impression I got,” he said. “Of course, without a name it wasn’t exactly a Tarasoff situation.”

“Still, you thought he was a threat to somebody,” said Sarah. “So you had him admitted to Eagle Mountain, right?”

“Almost a year to the day after he became my patient, yes.”

I raised my hand. “Tarasoff?”

“The court case,” said Sarah. “Tarasoff versus Regents of the University of California. The ruling obliges a therapist to breach confidentiality with his patient if he knows a third party is in danger.”

I shot her a sideways look. “Show-off.”

She smiled before turning again to Drummond. “Here’s what I don’t get, though,” she said. “Ned goes to Eagle Mountain and stays there for over three years without incident. Then one day, out of the blue, he decides to escape. He violently murders a nurse and goes on a killing spree, all the victims having the same name.”

“Obviously he blames someone named John O’Hara for his sister’s death,” said Drummond. “I mean, he really blames him.”

“Yes,” said Sarah. “But why act on it now? Why did he wait?”

“Think of his fixation disorder as a cancer,” he said. “Ned was in remission. He was on medication, and whatever urges he had, they were under control. In check.”

“So that’s my question. What happened to change that?” she asked.

“I had the same question,” said Drummond. “That’s why before I came here I paid a visit to Eagle Mountain. It turns out a new nurse had been assigned to Ned’s floor.”

“What did she have to do with anything?” I asked.

“You mean what did he have to do with anything,” he said. “He was a male nurse.”

“Is that the one Ned killed?” asked Sarah.

“Yes. His nickname was Ace.”

I shrugged. “So?”

Drummond leaned back in the armchair. “So now ask me what his real name was.”