The Double Bind

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

LAUREL HAD NEVER been to the prison before. Never driven the long, two-lane road surrounded on both sides by nothing but farmland that led from Saint Albans to the correctional facility. Never noticed that coils of concertina wire have anvil-shaped razors-because, of course, she had never seen the wire up close. She saw that the prison’s squat cinder-block buildings stretched out like the spikes on an asterisk. The asphalt basketball court had a wire fence and a wire roof. She saw the remains of two massive gardens on the other side of the walls, one for that summer’s vegetables and one for flowers. The vegetable garden was easily a couple of acres: The long rows of tomato cages alone must have stretched the length of a tractor trailer truck. The woman with her, the woman who was driving, told her as they parked that the inmates grew enough vegetables here to feed the prison through the summer and fall. She admitted to Laurel that she honestly didn’t know what they did with all those flowers. She was from the Department of Crime Victim Services, and she was with Laurel because the social worker from BEDS was going to see her own perp.

That was the term this woman named Margot Ann kept using. Perp.

And she was not about to let Laurel go alone. Margot Ann was even taller than Laurel, her black hair was just starting to gray, and she wore it boyishly short. Originally, she was from Jackson, Mississippi: Hence, she said, the use of two first names instead of one. She had met her husband, a native Vermonter, overseas when they had both been in the National Guard. She helped coach the girls’ basketball team at the high school in her community, although her own children were all boys and spent most of the time in the winter on their snowboards. She had shared much of her life with Laurel on the drive to Saint Albans. Laurel guessed this was supposed to make her feel more comfortable, more at ease. They had done all their prep work the day before. In theory-and Margot Ann said theories meant little in a clarification hearing like this-she and Margot Ann would meet with Dan Corbett for perhaps half an hour. She would ask the questions about his father and his grandfather that interested her, and he would share with her the letter he had written. But it wouldn’t be simple. Not logistically, not emotionally. Laurel understood. Now, lulled by Margot Ann’s conversational drone, she felt oddly airy in the passenger seat of the woman’s Corolla, as if she were suspended on a Styrofoam noodle in the swimming pool back in West Egg, a little girl half in and half out of the water.

At the prison’s main entrance, she and Margot Ann gave up their keys and their pens and their cell phones. They gave up their vials of pepper spray. (Margot Ann, Laurel saw, carried one, too.) They were met by the facility’s superintendent and a correctional officer who would escort them to the room where the small hearing would be held, but who wouldn’t actually join them for it. The officer would wait just outside the room’s glass door, but there would only be four of them present in the hearing: Margot Ann, Dan Corbett’s therapist, the victim and the…perp.

There is that four-letter word again, Laurel thought, as she surveyed the metal detector in the small, spare lobby. Perp. It almost sounded like one of the names Corbett and Russell Richard Hagen had called her that day on the dirt road in the woods.

Inside the prison, she learned that the facility’s myriad metal doors were opened and closed electronically by a correctional officer with a gun in a booth: He was surrounded by cinder-block walls and bulletproof glass, and he could see the doors throughout the building on closed-circuit television monitors inside his cubicle. From there, he pushed the buttons that slid steel bolts back and forth across the entire prison. Guards would radio to him which door they wanted opened: “One door.” “Two door.” “Three door.” “J”-meaning the door to the J-wing, the pod with the sex offenders. That’s where they were going. The sex offenders had their own wing because the rest of the prisoners detested them. The correctional officer who was accompanying Laurel and Margot Ann said that only last week he had broken up a fight between two inmates because one had wrongly accused the other of being a sex offender.

Apparently, the therapist she was about to meet had spent much of yesterday preparing Dan Corbett for Laurel. His rights mattered, too.

THEY SAT IN A square room with orange walls and a single window that looked out upon a small, dark courtyard. There were drawings that inmates had made taped to the walls-kites and children and spaceships-and Laurel wondered if they were a part of the therapy. Four chairs had been placed in a spacious circle, and she was seated in the one closest to the door. Dan Corbett would be seated across from her, a good six or seven feet away. His therapist would sit beside him; Margot Ann would sit next to her. A correctional officer would be watching them through the glass door.

Laurel had brought select photos with her, and she busied herself while she waited for the inmate to be escorted into the room by arranging and rearranging the key ones in her lap. There was the old snapshot of Bobbie and Pamela. The photographs Bobbie had taken years later of the house in East Egg. One of Gatsby’s estate. The pair of her on the dirt road in Underhill.

She wasn’t sure in what order she would reveal them. It might depend upon whether this prisoner was Bobbie’s son, or whether that distinction belonged to the convicted murderer in Montana. Margot Ann kept reminding her that Dan Corbett was not going to be a physical threat to her, but she wouldn’t be surprised if he was still a psychological viper. He had been in counseling now for a year and a half, said Margot Ann, but she understood he was still the sort who could turn on her in a moment. And while they could prevent him from touching her, Corbett might say wounding, hurtful things before they could silence him. She hoped he wouldn’t: After all, he had written that letter expressing his remorse. But Laurel should never lose sight of what he had done seven years ago.

“You okay?” asked Margot Ann finally.

“Uh-huh,” she mumbled.

“Good.” She gazed for a moment at the images in Laurel ’s lap. Then she continued, “So, you think Corbett’s father may have taken those?”

“I think so. I hope so.”

“Why?”

“Because I would rather believe the man who had taken them was related to Corbett than Hagen.”

“And, I presume, because you don’t want to go to Butte.”

“For many reasons. Yes.”

“But you would?”

“I believe so,” Laurel said.

“Is that you?” asked Margot Ann. She gestured with her finger at one of the pictures of the girl on the mountain bike.

“Yes,” she said. It still surprised her that it had taken her so long to admit this to herself. To admit it out loud. Of course that girl was her. Who else could it be?

THE FIRST THING Laurel noticed when Dan Corbett was ushered into the room-and she noticed it instantly-was the tattoo. There it was, the devil’s skull on his neck. The fangs. Her eyes slid down the arms of his navy blue jumpsuit to his wrists, just to be sure there was no barbed-wire bracelet in purple ink, too. There wasn’t. She took some comfort in this, but she knew she should be careful: Dan Corbett had tried to rape her. And while he may not have murdered that woman in Montana, something about him had nonetheless scared the hell out of Bobbie Crocker.

His eyes were bloodshot and his skin was so pale it was almost translucent: She could see small road maps of veins on his cheeks and along the sides of his nose. He looked a little cooked. But he also appeared more oily than menacing: He certainly seemed less threatening than he had six-plus years ago in the courtroom. She guessed he was fifty now. He still had an immaculately trimmed goatee, though it had grown as gray as the hair that fell in greasy curtains over his ears. She remembered something a professor had once told her class back in college: In the flesh, malice is not especially impressive. More times than not, it’s our size, it fits inside the frames of our mirrors.

“I believe you two know each other,” said Corbett’s therapist, a tall, slim fellow with a small gold hoop in his ear who didn’t look much older than Laurel. He was wearing a blue denim shirt and a casual necktie patterned with the phases of the moon. His name, she knew from their phone calls yesterday, was Brian.

Corbett’s eyes were darting around the room, taking in Laurel and Margot Ann. He had black Converse sneakers on his feet that squeaked on the linoleum floor. He wasn’t shackled.

“Yes,” Laurel said. “Hello.”

“Hello.” It took only those two syllables, but instantly she heard in her head his cloying, sinewy, disgusting little joke from the dirt road. Liqueur Snatch. The two men sat and Brian outlined the ground rules for their clarification hearing. What he hoped they would accomplish. Something about the whole situation reminded Laurel of a meeting between lawyers trying to hammer out a divorce settlement.

And then they all turned to her, presuming she was ready to start. Caught off guard, she asked the very first question that popped into her mind: “Did you ever work in a carnival?”

Corbett gave her a self-deprecating smile and looked down at the piece of lined yellow paper he had in his lap. His letter, she guessed. “Yup.” That was all.

“What did you do there?”

He shrugged. “I ran rides.”

“Is there anything you want to add to that, Dan?” asked his therapist. “Is there anything more you wish to tell Ms. Estabrook?”

“It was just a job,” he said to Brian. “Paid me a little money.”

“Tell Ms. Estabrook.”

He turned to face her across the broad circle. “It was nothing special. No big deal. Just work.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“No prob.”

“And your father. What was his name?”

“I see you got his pictures.”

“I…do.” She spoke slowly, haltingly. She felt immediate relief that Bobbie’s son was this man, not Russell Richard Hagen. She also experienced a deep and satisfying rush of optimism: In the coming moments-in this very room-she was about to learn all that she needed to convince the doubters around her that she was right and they were wrong. That her mind was sound.

Of course, this also meant that she was going to have to inform him that his father had died, and she wasn’t sure how he would respond.

“I didn’t really know him,” Corbett continued. “He showed up three, maybe four times in my life. He went by Bobbie.”

“I have something to tell you about him.”

“And that is?”

“He passed away. A stroke. I’m sorry, Mr. Corbett.”

“That why you came here?” he asked. There wasn’t even a trace of grief in his tone.

“Partly.”

“He mighta been my dad, but he was no father. I had no bones to pick with him at the end. But, oh, no, he was never my father.”

“How did he find you in Vermont?”

“We’d just run into each other at a shelter in Boston. He recognized me. I said I was goin’ to Burlington. You know, ’cause of the fair. I was meeting up with Russ Hagen, and I told him so. Russ had been a carny, too. But then he got a real job at that fitness place.”

All morning Laurel had endured an ever-thickening cloud bank of dread; she had felt her nerves thrumming inside her. Now the mere mention of Hagen ’s name-there it was, out there in the room like a thunderhead-was causing her to tremble. Little electric spasms moved through her like hummingbird wings. She felt Margot Ann’s hand on her forearm.

“You want some water, Laurel?” Margot Ann asked.

She shook her head no and continued. “Did he give you anything when he came here? A picture? A box?”

“Bobbie? No way. That man didn’t have a pot to piss in.”

“He had his photographs.”

“And he never let those out of his sight.”

“Did you ever frighten him?”

“Bobbie? When I was on drugs, I probably scared everyone.” He seemed to take pride in this, and Brian whispered something to Corbett she couldn’t quite hear. Then, after they had pulled apart, Corbett added, “Yes. I scared him the day we hurt you.”

“How?”

“I was outta control.”

“Did he see what happened?”

“What happened?” Corbett asked, and once more Brian looked over at the inmate. This time he didn’t have to prod him verbally. Corbett went on, “I don’t think so. He heard. We were all pretty noisy. But he didn’t see. I think he got there before those other bicyclists did. The lawyers.”

“Before?”

“Yeah.”

“Was he in the van with you when you drove out there?”

“No, a course not. Remember, he was this crazy old man! He-”

“He was your father!” She snapped at him, and instantly the room went quiet. Margot Ann’s hand was still on her forearm, stroking her skin through the sleeve of her shirt.

“I don’t have to be here,” Dan Corbett said to no one in particular. “I do not have to be here.”

“No, you don’t,” said Brian. “But we’re all glad you are. I think Ms. Estabrook was more surprised than angry. Is that correct?”

“Yes. That’s correct.”

The prisoner filled his cheeks with air as if he were a chipmunk and then exhaled audibly. A balloon that’s been untied. “He was stayin’ with us, he knew ’bout that road. Liked to take his pictures on it. But he didn’t know you were goin’ to be there that day. He didn’t know me and Hagen were, either. But Hagen knew you would be around. He knew where you parked. He’d followed you, like, two times. Maybe three. I don’t know. Anyway, Bobbie just walked out there from Hagen ’s place. It wasn’t that far. Well, maybe to a guy in his seventies it was. But not really. We didn’t even know he had been out there till just before the cops came to the trailer. And then he split just before they arrived.”

“You never told the police.”

“They didn’t ask,” he said, and for the first time she heard a low rumble of evil in his voice. “And I wasn’t about to give them another witness. That wouldn’t a made much sense. And neither was Hagen.”

She looked down at the pictures before her, and held up for him the large print of the Buchanan estate in East Egg. “Do you recognize this house?”

“Nope.”

“But you knew your father took the picture, right?”

“I guess. But I don’t assume nothin’ with Bobbie.”

“Did you ever meet your grandfather?”

“Sure. I knew ’em both.”

She sat back in her chair. “Tell me about them. Please.”

“What do you wanna know?”

“Whatever you can remember.”

“Well, let’s see. My momma’s daddy was a jazz musician. Played trumpet. He lived in the Bronx.”

“And your father’s?”

“You mean the man who raised me? The fellow my momma married? Or Bobbie’s?”

“Bobbie’s.”

“I figured.”

“Please,” said Laurel.

“Bobbie’s daddy lived out on Long Island.”

“Uh-huh.”

“He was a conductor on the Long Island Railroad. He-”

“A conductor?”

“A conductor. That’s right. You know, on a train? His momma was a schoolteacher. First grade, second grade. Something like that. Bobbie used to take pictures of the train platforms out there sometimes. Out on Long Island. I guess ’cause of his old man. And the nice houses out there: He took pictures of them, too. Truth is, I saw Bobbie’s parents more than I saw my momma’s. And I saw them all more than the parents of the man momma finally married.”

Laurel had thought it possible that Corbett wouldn’t have any idea who Bobbie’s parents were. Likewise, she had imagined he might have known his grandmother was Daisy Fay Buchanan and thought mistakenly that his grandfather was Tom. But she had never for a moment entertained the notion that he could be so profoundly misinformed-that he would have it all so wrong.

“A train conductor?” she asked. “And a schoolteacher? Why would you think that?”

“Because that’s who they were, lady. I spent serious time with them as a boy. For a while, my momma thought she could handle Bobbie’s craziness better than his own parents, specially after she let him knock her up good-”

“This is your mother you’re talking about,” said Brian.

“My momma weren’t no different from-”

“Tread lightly,” Brian cautioned the inmate. “Remember-”

Corbett put up both hands in a gesture of resignation. “Fine. ’Nuff said.”

“Is your mother still living?” Laurel asked.

“No. She died a long time ago.”

“Do you have any siblings?”

“That word sounds like a venereal disease,” said Corbett, leering. “Siblings. Siblings. Let me ask you: Do you have siblings, Ms. Estabrook?”

Margot Ann turned to Laurel and looked her squarely in the eye. “Would you like to leave?”

“No.” Then, to Corbett, she rephrased her question: “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“I do not.”

“What about the name Buchanan? Does that ring a bell?”

“Nope.”

“Daisy?”

“Like a flower?”

“Like your grandmother.”

“My grandmother was not named after no flower. I had one named Alice and I had one named Cecilia. Bobbie’s momma, the teacher? She was Alice.”

“No,” Laurel said. “She was Daisy. She was married to Tom Buchanan. That was their house in the photo I showed you. And in 1922, in the summer, she had an affair with a bootlegger named Jay Gatsby. Gatsby-”

“As in the novel?” This was Brian. Laurel saw that everyone in the room was staring at her.

“He was Dan Corbett’s grandfather: Bobbie Crocker’s father. That’s who Jay Gatsby was!” Had she raised her voice? She hoped that she hadn’t. But the exchange had happened so quickly and she had been unprepared for this prisoner’s recalcitrance and denial. For his bizarre fabrication. A train conductor? A schoolteacher? She could only presume he had made up such a story to torment her. Torture her further.

There again was that voice. His voice. A recollection: Liqueur Snatch.

“ Laurel?” She turned. It was Margot Ann. Otherwise, the room was silent. The drumbeat in her head was the only other noise she could hear. “ Laurel?” Margot Ann said again.

“Yes?”

“Would you like a break? Mr. Corbett isn’t going anywhere. But we can leave.”

She heard someone in the room sniff. Realized it was herself.

“May I still hear the letter?” she asked.

“Still? Of course you may,” said Margot Ann. “If you want to.”

Corbett looked away, glared at the clock on the wall. Brian tapped the tips of his fingers gently together, and the inmate looked at his therapist-a trained dog, she thought-and then at her.

“Do I just read this out loud?” he asked.

“Just like we did in the group. Just like you did with me,” said Brian. Then, to Laurel, he added, “He’s becoming accountable for his actions.” Laurel thought it was as if he were speaking about an ill-behaved child.

Margot Ann asked her once more if she really wanted to hear this, and she heard herself saying she did. She did. She…did. She didn’t believe she had repeated herself, but she feared that she might have.

And then, just after that, Corbett started to read. His voice was at once sycophantic and condescending. He wanted, she decided, to demean her while somehow garnering the approval of his therapist. She knew this was an impossible task, and it dawned on her that if he couldn’t have both he would choose to make her suffer. That, perhaps, was for him his moment of arousal.

“Dear Ms. Estabrook,” he began, holding the paper before him with both hands, as if it were a hardcover novel. “I am writing you this letter to say I am sorry for what me and Russ Hagen did to you seven years ago. I was on drugs, but that’s no excuse. I left home early, but that’s no excuse neither. Neither is the time I spent just drifting around. I take full responsibility for what I did. And that means I take full responsibility for hurting you. These are hard words for me to write because they are so evil. Sodomy. Rape. Mutilation. But they say the truth will set you free and I will not mince words. And so while I don’t remember everything, I remember enough. And I know what came out in the investigation. It’s all true, I know. That means that first of all I am sorry for the ways we broke your collarbone and your fingers and your foot. And I am sorry for holding you down while Russ raped you in those two places. I am sorry I raped you there, too. And I am sorry that we forced you to have oral sex on us. And most of all I am sorry that I held you by your arms while Russ Hagen cut you so badly. I do not believe that he really planned to cut out your heart, and I did not really believe it then. But I know I was scared you would be able to figure out who we were, and so I think a part of me was hoping Russ really would kill you when he cut off your breast. And so much of you was bleeding so badly when we left, I thought you really might die back there in the woods. But I was glad then and I am glad now that those men on the bicycles found you and you are alive. I am sorry about your breast and the other scars. I wish I could make it up to you. I wish I could go back in time and not do those awful things to you. But I can’t. And so all I can do, Ms. Estabrook, is say that I am sorry. Sincerely, Dan Corbett. P. S. I will never do this sort of thing to another person. I promise.” When he finished, he glanced over at Brian. “Do I give this to her?”

“You stay seated. We’ll give it to her,” the therapist said.

Beside her, Margot Ann’s eyes were closed. She was, Laurel realized, fighting back tears. Brian was staring down at the floor. There was again the pulse of her heart in her head and she felt herself sweating. She felt oddly, unaccountably naked. And she wondered why this inmate had been allowed to fabricate so much in what was supposed to be a letter of clarification.

PATIENT 29873

…patient showed me a copy of The Great Gatsby, the paperback with the deep blue cover and the flapper with the nymphs in her eyes, and yet continued to dispute that it was a work of fiction. Referred to it as a memoir, a true story. Little reaction when shown the publisher’s page with author, publishing date, fiction disclaimer, etc.

The diagnostic problem has been referred to before. Regarding stressors preceding this episode (whatever it’s an episode of), there are photographs of a young woman on a dirt road on a bicycle in the collection that appear to have been taken near the spot seven years ago where the rape and mutilation occurred. It is beyond current knowledge to determine whether it would cause the delusions by being found among images of the childhood swim club, i.e., suggesting to the patient a biographic or even karmic connection…

From the notes of Kenneth Pierce,

attending psychiatrist,

Vermont State Hospital, Waterbury, Vermont