The Hand That Feeds You

31

As someone who had been deeply conned by not one person, but two, and not just conned, but exposed to a multiple murderer, I found myself examining both my suitability for the work I had chosen and the definition of the people I had been studying. Neither the term sociopath nor psychopath appears in the DSM-5. The closest term to sociopath is antisocial personality disorder. The criteria for diagnosis include impairments in self-esteem, self-direction, empathy, intimacy, plus the use of manipulation and deceit, and the presence of hostility, callousness, irresponsibility, impulsivity, and a lack of concern for one’s limitations: risk-taking.

• • •

The most widely used test for psychopathy is the PCL — R—Psychopathy Checklist — Revised — also known as Hare’s Checklist. The Canadian psychologist Robert Hare has pointed out that sociologists are more likely to focus on environmental or socially modifiable facets, whereas psychologists and psychiatrists include the genetic, cognitive, and emotional factors when making a diagnosis.

I did use Billie as the case study for the final chapter of my thesis. I ended with the question Should these people be forgiven?

I could not forgive myself.

Forgive yourself for what? my brother and McKenzie asked. For thinking the best of people? For having a trusting heart? But I needed to find another way to think about forgiveness — some people think the ability to forgive will just come to them at a certain point, but others recognize that it can be a choice. That it can manifest as another form of empathy, a gift to oneself.

• • •

Billie’s grandmother’s money bought a team of attorneys who are fighting to get Billie committed to a private psychiatric hospital rather than prison. This despite the fact that psychopaths are believed not to benefit at all from psychiatric intervention. She is being held for now in the Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center, a maximum-security hospital of the New York State Office of Mental Health, where she is being evaluated by a state psychiatrist for the prosecution and by eminent expert witnesses for the defense. It is the large, grim-looking structure that Billie and I saw across the Harlem River the day we got Cloud out of the shelter and walked her along the water, letting her taste and sniff her freedom.

• • •

When you meet someone during a crisis, you have immediate history, Cilla had told me. You skip over the petty revelations and embarrassments. You bypass the quotidian and go right to the core.

McKenzie had seen me in jail. He’d seen me gullible, afraid, and jealous. He’d seen me miss what was right in front of me. Yet he had seen me.

And wanted to see me again. We all have a fantasy that collides with reality. I would not have pictured a first kiss when I was just released from Rikers with dirty hair, unbathed, feeling less desirable than I ever had. But that is when McKenzie pulled me into him and held my face — that gesture that is both tender and possessive — and kissed me. I thought of the old song Betty Everett sang, “If you want to know if he loves you so, it’s in his kiss.” The reality was better than the fantasy. Better because desire was fused with ease, not the anxiety that accompanies obsession. Better because he had been courtly — I noted the pun even as the word occurred to me — and because I knew who this man was.

• • •

McKenzie filed a petition to get Cloud released a week after my own release.

He had offered to drive me to the sanctuary to pick her up, but I wanted to go by myself. I passed the Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center as I drove along the FDR north and out of the city. Billie was behind one of those thousand barred windows.

The day was clear with a few clouds that, according to weather reports, would gather in the late afternoon, possibly bringing showers. There was little traffic, and I was content to drive at the posted speed limit, even though I was headed to get my dog back. I did not turn on the radio or put in a CD. I reveled in the clarity I had in the aftermath of finding myself alive. I was proud to know that I had fought for my life. It seems obvious — that a person would fight for her life — but it wasn’t at the time. This is not to overlook luck, that I was lucky, too. It was humbling to acknowledge how much luck was involved.

It would be another forty minutes or so until I would reach the exit for the bar where Billie had revealed herself as Libertine. The transformation still unnerved me. Over a couple of drinks, she had exhibited five of the seven hallmarks of a psychopath.

I pulled Steven’s car into a gas station. I used to feel that I was not put on this earth to pump my own gas, but I had come to enjoy it. Something about simply knowing how to do it, and the instant gratification of filling the tank. I paid cash and got the lower price for doing so.

I was coming up on the turnoff to Greenwich, where Billie’s grandmother lived. I had seen her again when I testified before the grand jury. She was sitting by herself on a bench just outside the courtroom. There’s a saying: a young woman dresses to please, an old woman dresses not to displease. Billie’s grandmother was impeccable in a timeless Chanel suit with the accompanying strands of pearls. She had mastered the art of looking through a person and gave a demonstration when I tried to catch her eye. When my name was called and I entered the courtroom, I saw that Billie, who was sitting at a table with her defense team, looked as though she’d been dressed by her grandmother. I had never seen her in a suit before, or in stockings and low-heeled pumps. Her long hair was caught and tied in a high ponytail. She wore no makeup and looked benign. Unlike her grandmother, Billie made eye contact with me, not that I could read her expression. I might have been a docent in a museum, pointing out the brush technique of an old master. Mild interest, that was all she seemed to register, her indictment as something to pass the time.

It was just before noon when I pulled up the driveway to For Pitties’ Sake. Alfredo was down by the agility course, walking two dogs. One was my Cloud, and the other was a blue-nose pittie. The dogs were in step with each other, I could see, and when Alfredo saw me, he waved and steered the dogs in my direction. He handed off the pit bull to an assistant who had come from the house. Then he released Cloud’s leash and I called her name. From about a hundred yards away, Cloud lifted her head. I called her name again. This time she lowered her head and ran toward me. When she got about ten feet away, she slowed her pace so she didn’t knock me over. Just in front of me, she threw herself onto her back and kicked her legs in the air. I lay down in the grass beside her and let her roll onto me. We held each other that way, until Cloud pressed her forehead into mine; we used to do this — press our foreheads together and close our eyes. Well, I closed my eyes — when I would open mine, Cloud would be gazing at me.

“You’re going home, girl,” Alfredo said to Cloud, then to me, “She fooled everyone, that Billie. But she never fooled the dogs. That rottie she brought in. I thought she was frightened of Billie the same way she was frightened of everyone.” Alfredo dropped down beside us on the grass. “When Billie brought her in, I should have known this dog had seen something that scared it. The dog was healthy, but something spooked her bad.”

“The dog witnessed her owner’s murder.”

“She said that Audie had belonged to an old man who died. She said that Audie had been in the house with the body for a couple of days before someone found them.”

“How is the dog doing?” I remembered thinking that the dog was behaving weirdly that day in Pat’s studio, but Audie was in fact behaving appropriately, given that Billie was in the woods just outside. I wondered how Billie had subdued Audie. Did Pat open the door to Billie’s knock, thinking it was me coming back? Did Billie bring meat laced with drugs?

“Turns out she’s the sweetest thing. She protects the smaller dogs here, and I trust her with all of them,” Alfredo said. “There’s a term you’ve heard? The blossom? A dog finds herself out of a bad situation and can trust that she is safe?”

She blossoms.