Cemetery of Angels (9 page)

Rebecca looked at the lamp. The suspended cord
was
crooked. But, if gravity applied to this place, the cord couldn’t have been crooked, which meant that Delbert was right. She sighed. La Land struck sometimes when she least suspected it would.

Delbert disappeared for a moment then reappeared with a clipboard. There was a printed form on it. The usual medical insurance crap. Rebecca filled out the form while the further ramifications of visiting a quake-crooked building started to weave their way into her mind. Then Delbert disappeared with the completed paperwork and quickly appeared again with voices — one male, one female — in the background.

“Here’s the doctor now,” Delbert said merrily.

Rebecca looked up. Through a door, she could see into the doctor’s office. The office had an exit directly to the outer hallway. The doctor was dismissing his previous patient, also a female. Moments later, Henry Einhorn, M.D., emerged from his office. He was a package of surprises. A small package.

Einhorn was a tiny man with a dark complexion and intensely handsome features, the chiseled cheekbones and the brooding face of an early screen star. It occurred to her that Dr. Einhorn might have come by these attributes through the skilled hands of a surgeon rather than through a favorable gene pool. Then it occurred to her almost as quickly that Henry Einhorn might have had a wonderful career on screen were it not for his other most salient attribute. The doc was no more than five feet two inches tall.

Rebecca had had a girlfriend in high school that insisted that men under five three were actually tall dwarfs. The comment came back to her many times over the course of several years, including right now. Rebecca had to suppress a grin as Dr. Einhorn came to her to offer a hand.

“Hi,” he said. “I’m Dr. Henry Einhorn. And I’m pleased to meet you.”

“Rebecca Moore,” she said.

She took his hand and stood, feeling as if she were riding an elevator as she did so. She was shorter than he one second, and four inches taller the next. Life in Southern California, she thought to herself. Up and down in the matter of seconds. Everyone’s in show biz, everyone’s a star. And some days everyone was nuts. Even herself, she speculated. Or was she the only one who was sane? He led Rebecca into his inner chamber and closed the door.

The elfin psychiatrist was dressed simply, but immaculately. Dark slacks and a two hundred dollar shirt with an open neck. West Coast upscale casual. He sat down in a chair across from her. He talked to her sympathetically and intelligently. Fears of quackery disappeared. Henry Einhorn and Rebecca exchanged small talk for several seconds, and then Einhorn drifted toward the business end of his conversation.

“I’ll make things more comfortable by doing much of the early talking,” he said to her. “I’m a clinical psychiatrist. I know you were seeing Dr. Miller in Connecticut, but he has more of a family practice. My specialty is PTSD. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which is why you were referred to me. I’ve been written up in all the journals. If you want to see any of the articles, ask Del on the way out.”

Rebecca nodded. She remembered the explanation Dr. Miller had given her.

“Post Trauma Stress Disorder,” he repeated. “I know you’re college educated and you know what PTSD is all about. But let’s run through it in a sentence or two.”

The doctor’s hand drifted to his desk. There were some M&M’s in a dish. He treated himself to a couple, carefully picking out only the green ones.

“In lay terms,” he explained, “PTSD is a catchall term for the psychological bruises which afflict crime victims. I don’t have to convince you, because you know: victims of violent assault suffer in many different ways. First there’s the assault, itself. There’s maybe the financial or physical harm. But then, second, there are also the mental damages, and don’t ever let anyone suggest that the psychological part isn’t the worst. The head problems. The insecurities. The self-doubt. The feeling that you’re continually in jeopardy. The constant feeling of being on edge: jumping out of your skin if a family member appears quietly in the same room with you.” His gaze was upon her. “Am I connecting, Rebecca? Am I describing the way you feel?” She nodded again. “Good. That’s why you were seeing Dr. Miller in Connecticut, and that’s why we are here today talking,” he said. “If I’m on the mark, you can take some comfort. It means your reactions are those of an intelligent woman who is reacting to a horrible deed in a normal way. Okay?” He winked.

“Okay,” she concurred. Dr. Einhom may have been unorthodox. But he was sounding less kooky and more sympathetic by the minute.

“Rebecca, I’m not in business to treat people for years, assure them there’s nothing wrong with them, and then insist that they should keep coming. I want to make myself obsolete. I want to lead you to an understanding of yourself, then throw you out of here and fix someone else while you get on with a happy life. How’s that sound?”

“Perfect,” she said.

“I’d also like you to be aware of what I call The Dachau Principle,” he continued. “It affects you, I would think.” It sounded somber. She held her breath and waited.

“Go ahead,” she finally said.

“It’s simple. In the years since World War Two, many former concentration camp victims have been treated for severe psychological disorders. Call it Post Trauma Stress Disorder in its most extreme example. Many psychotherapists treated these people while holding to the theory that the patients themselves were mentally ill. My theory is their extreme reactions were the reactions of sane people who had been subjected to unspeakable inhumanity. Do you see my point?”

“I think so.”

“I’ll make it directly, anyway,” Dr. Einhorn said. “Psychological disturbance following extreme trauma, particularly life threatening trauma, is to me a nod and logical reaction by a mentally healthy individual. My approach is not to treat you as someone who is ill, but rather to guide your thought processes. I want to lead you into an understanding of them. That way you can understand and control your own mind. It really is that simple.” He paused. “Sometimes,” he concluded.

“Look,” Rebecca said, “I don’t have a problem with any of that. It’s just that I’m not at all sure that I even need to be here.”

“Bravo! Excellent,” he said. “Congratulations.” Dr. Einhom smiled easily and made an expansive gesture with his hands. “Then we’re halfway home,” he said. She looked at him.

“Halfway where?” she asked.

“Halfway to where we want to be,” he answered. “You suspect you might not need to be here. As soon as I feel the same way, you won’t need to be.” She blinked. Einhorn had a way of putting her at ease.

“You make it sound easy,” Rebecca said.

“As I said, sometimes it is, Rebecca. Human beings are resilient. The mind responds to its stimuli. Threat is answered by fear. Knowledge begs rational comprehension as its response. I have no reason to think you won’t respond that way, too.” He poached another few M&M’s. She watched his hand. This time, yellow only.

She gathered herself emotionally.

“Thank you,” she said.

“‘What you’re also telling me,” he said, “is that someone near you prompted you to come to me. A husband. A lover. A family member.”

“My husband,” she answered.

“Nothing wrong with that. He’s obviously concerned about you.” She surprised herself with her response.

“That, or he thinks I’m more disturbed than I am.”

“Cynicism can be counterproductive, Rebecca. You should be aware of that.” Again, she nodded.

Was she imagining it, or, by remote control, or by an unseen cue, had the lights lowered in his office. Yes, indeed, she concluded. They had.

“I’d like you to talk to me a little bit,” he said. “You took the trouble to come by. That suggests something right there.” She nodded.

“My doctor back east in addition to my husband,” she said. “They both thought it might be a good idea if I ‘talked’ to someone here in California.”

“But do
you
think that’s a good idea?” Einhorn asked. She thought about it. Then she nodded.

“Sometimes,” she said. “Sometimes I get scared. Thinking back.” She looked at the doctor’s folder and for a moment wondered how much he knew about her background. “I think back on the incident in Connecticut,” she said. “You know what I’m talking about?”

“Of course I do. Dr. Miller forwarded everything,” Einhorn said. “I’ve read the complete transcript.” She nodded.

“Someone tried to kill me,” she said. “I don’t know why. I don’t know who. I don’t know where that man is today. Sometimes I think that…” she paused. “I think that I’ll open a door, and he’ll be standing there.” She had another sentence but didn’t complete it.

“Why would he be there again, Rebecca? That horrible incident was on the other side of the United States.” She shrugged.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“But you think there might be a reason?”

“I don’t know why he attacked me in the first place,” she said.

“No one was ever arrested?” he asked.

“No. No arrests. Whoever did it is still out there.”

“And you think it was you he wanted to attack? You specifically? You don’t think it was random?”

“No.” She explained why. Einhom nodded.

“Do you think you might have done something in the past?” the doctor asked. “Something to provoke this?” She threw up her hands.

“Who knows? What would I have done?” she asked. “And to whom?”

“But you don’t dismiss that possibility?”

“Should I?” He admonished her with a laugh.

“Rebecca, you’re a bright lady,” he said. “And I see that you’ve worked as a reporter. But if you don’t mind, in my office, I ask the questions. Okay?”

She smiled. Even when she was on the receiving end of a mild rebuke, she found talking to him was much easier than she had anticipated.

“Okay,” she agreed.

Then he asked her the question she herself had posed.

“Should you?” he asked. “Should you dismiss the possibility that you might have done something to bring this upon yourself? Take some time, Rebecca. Really examine that question. Look at your past. See where it takes you.”

She let her mind go with it. Her thoughts seemed to float. Distantly in the other room, she heard Del Morninglori arguing loudly on the phone with someone about a bill for bottled water.

“No,” she said after several seconds, answering the doctor. “We shouldn’t dismiss that. I can’t imagine what it could have been, but we shouldn’t dismiss it.”

“Then why don’t we talk about it in the future?” he suggested. “All right?”

Rebecca nodded.

“As I said, this can be easy,” he continued. “As easy as sharing our thoughts and seeing what we can discover.” He paused. “I should tell you, I have a purpose for prowling around in your past. And I’ll tell you what it is.”

“Go ahead,” she said.

“Sometimes when there’s something too awful in our memories, we don’t want to accept it,” Dr. Einhorn said. “So we block it. It’s a little memory trick that we play on ourselves. But the key to what’s going on in our heads right now is knowing what’s locked up in there from the past. Am I connecting?”

“You are connecting.”

“But we can’t know if we continue to block. Right?”

“Right.”

“That’s our ‘thought for the day,’” the doctor said. His gaze was intent upon her. Then he smiled. She reciprocated.

“Keep close track of your own short term memory, also, Rebecca. Little things. Misplacing objects. Forgetting errands. Short term remembrance problems betray a lack of concentration on events as they transpire.”

“I forget stuff all the time. Isn’t that normal? Don’t most people?”

“Sure,” he allowed. “But how much forgetting we do can be symptomatic of two things: First, how much untidiness there is inside our heads. And second, how much we might be willing to block something big. Something big and bad.”

Her eyes found his shoes. Expensive. Brown leather. Pale green socks, one inside out, it appeared. She wondered if he was a charlatan, after all. Could anyone serious wear pale green socks and not even be able to put them on right?

“Rebecca?” he asked. Her eyes rose.

“I’m listening,” she said. “I’ll keep track. Short term memory, right?”

“As seen as the key to long-term.” He closed his notebook. “I give lollipops at the end of each session. Do you want grape or orange?”

She stared at him.

“Just kidding,” he said. “I don’t do the lollipop experience. But our time’s up. I hope you come back.”

Again she found herself nodding, and, despite everything, liking the tiny shrink. When their session was over, she had no difficulty making an appointment with Delbert for a follow-up in two weeks.

On her way out, the old phrase came to her about the inmates running the asylum. But the next thought that followed that one was to wonder whether, on occasion, it was such a bad thing if the inmates did take over from time to time. After all, in leaving, she felt refreshed. In truth, she felt pretty good. She was already looking forward to her tour through the area with Melissa the next day.

Rebecca heard the soft knocking at the stroke of eleven the next day. At first her heart skipped, thinking it was something within the house, or worse, something emanating from the turret room upstairs.

Then, upon half a second’s reflection, she realized that the rapping was at the front door. It was Melissa. Right on time. The funny thing was, the knocking had a strangely settling effect on Rebecca. That she had mistaken it for something within the house told her that other sounds within the building could be misleading, too.

But she didn’t dwell on the point. Instead, she answered the door. “Hi,” she said, greeting her friend.

“I’m not too early?” Melissa asked. She was decked out for a day of cruising: short shorts, pink t-shirt, blue LA Dodgers cap and big round sun glasses. “I was thinking of giving you a few extra minutes. My car or yours?”

“Mine is fine,’ Rebecca said.

“Cool. Let’s roll.”

Rebecca backed her Toyota out of the garage and they were off.

Melissa was an excellent guide. She had made a study of the area in an informal way, but knew it as an academic might. She knew the little ins and outs, the anecdotes, the little pieces of history.