None So Blind (7 page)

Hannah was oblivious to the private detour of Green’s thoughts. She swivelled around to look at Sharon. “Like what? I know about brain damage, tumours, concussions. But none of those happened to Rosten.”

“No, but drugs and alcohol can also make you blank out. Give even a normal person enough of either, and their brain wouldn’t register the memories.”

Green weighed the idea carefully. He had met numerous men who had killed in a drunken rage, but all of them had been serious alcoholics with a long history of assaults. In all cases, they had left a trail of clues that even a rookie detective could follow. One had been found passed out in the adjacent bedroom with the kitchen knife still in his hand. Drunk or drug-addled killers didn’t think clearly enough to cover their tracks as Rosten had.

“Was he drunk, Dad?”

He paused, trying to recall the investigation. In her initial statement, Rosten’s wife had said that when he arrived home shortly after 9 p.m., she detected a faint smell of alcohol, but he was not staggering or slurring his speech. However, although she had been his strongest ally in the beginning, the defence had not called her as a witness. Green recalled the Crown crowing about her change of heart as the evidence mounted. By the time the defence began its rebuttal, she was no longer sure of his state of mind on the evening in question, nor indeed what time he had come home, because she had fallen asleep. Possibly he’d been as late as midnight. He had seemed tired, she said. Distracted and preoccupied. His eyes had been red-rimmed and he had stammered slightly. He had brushed aside her concern by saying he’d dropped by the university after the cottage to pick up some lab reports.

No one had seen him there, however.

He could have been drunk, Green acknowledged. Drunk enough to lose his inhibitions, drunk enough to make unwise advances toward a pretty co-ed, maybe even drunk enough to get angry when she refused him. But drunk enough to black out the entire episode from his memory?

“I don’t think so,” he replied. “This killer was more careful and controlled than that.”

Hannah swung on Sharon. “Is there a type of amnesia that could do that? Block out the entire thing but leave him in control? What about that multiple personality stuff? That’s not just in the movies, is it?”

Sharon shook her head. “But it’s extremely rare. The mind is capable of the most astonishing things. The more I see, the less I know for sure. Anything is possible, but usually this kind of dissociative amnesia — when the mind blocks out a traumatic memory — occurs in people with a history of chronic, severe abuse, so the forgetting becomes a mental escape hatch for them. It becomes their way of coping with the intolerable. Did James Rosten have a history of childhood trauma?”

Green dredged his memory again. In truth, unlike Green, the OPP and the Crown had not been interested in the man’s psyche. They had constructed their case on circumstantial evidence: the cut on his head, the dirt on his knees and in the treads of the car tires, Jackie’s hair in his car, the sighting of Rosten and Jackie together and later of his car near the scene, the exam note in Jackie’s backpack, Rosten’s flimsy alibi and his flirtatious behaviour with other students.

Now Green recalled that only one brother had come forward to offer character evidence for the defence. He had testified to Rosten’s intelligence, drive, and rough, blue-collar roots. As the son of a Sudbury miner with no patience for book learning, he had delivered newspapers, mowed lawns, and shovelled laneways all through school to earn the money to continue his studies. He was the first in the family to go to university, the only one to earn a graduate degree.

The Crown had had only two questions for the man during their cross-examination. “Would you say that your brother’s accomplishments and position were important to him?”

To which the unwitting man replied, “No question.”

“Important enough to fight for?”

“He fought for them every day he lived in Sudbury.”

The Crown had quietly taken her seat. Green recalled thinking that the brother had clearly not inherited the same brains.

The brother’s testimony provided no hint of childhood abuse or trauma. On the contrary, he had described a capable and focused young man who’d carved his own path. But Green knew that beneath the veil of normalcy, a family could hide horrendous secrets. Children learned to keep them private from prying eyes and to act normal as if their life depended on it. Often it did. Perhaps James’s father had expressed his contempt not just with belittling words but with his fists.

“Can a childhood of abuse be hidden behind a façade of competence?” he asked Sharon now.

“Absolutely. Sometimes even super competence. But dig deep enough, there are scars. Often anger issues. Lack of trust, trouble with intimacy.”

“Pent-up rage?”

She studied him briefly, as if recognizing the implication. “That too. But amnesia suggests more than that. Usually people who dissociate are mentally fragile. They don’t learn to handle stress, because they escape it. So they usually have pretty serious chronic psychiatric problems, like anxiety and depression. Every time there is a new stress, they are prone to crumble. Maybe even dissociate again.”

If —
if
— this theory were true, Green thought, the stress of a new job and a new family could have been the trigger, and the killing of Jackie Carmichael the unconscious acting out of his buried childhood rage. Farfetched, barely credible, but, as Sharon said, the human mind was an astonishing thing.

And now this loose cannon was on the loose again. Without treatment and facing perhaps the worst stresses of his life.

I
gnoring
the laminated menu in front of him, Archie Goodfellow laced his fingers over his girth and smiled to catch the waitress’s eye. She grabbed a pot of coffee before hustling over. “Meatloaf and mashed, hon?”

He chuckled. It was the Tuesday lunch special at the diner, and in all the years he’d been coming here, he’d never missed that special. “You got it, Nancy. With extra gravy on the mashed.”

She laughed as she retrieved the menu. “No one joining you today?”

Archie did half his ministering over lunch at the diner, but today he pointed to his laptop. “Gotta catch up on my paperwork.”

Once she’d left, he moved aside his motorcycle helmet, set his laptop on the table and booted it up. It was true that there were fifty-two unopened emails in his inbox but he scrolled past all of them. Paperwork, even the electronic kind, was not his strong suit, and most people knew him well enough to send three or four reminders if they actually wanted a reply.

This time, however, he focused on a single email that had been sent to him only once. It was a forwarded message from Rosten’s new parole officer, accompanied by one sentence of explanation.
Think you should handle this. She checks out.
The parole officer knew him well enough to keep all correspondence brief.

Archie had already skimmed through the message earlier that morning, enough to know that it could not be handled with a quick, off-the-cuff reply. This would require some planning, some weighing of alternatives, even some soul-searching.

D
ear Mr. Vogel,

M
y name is Paige Henriksson. I am writing to you in your capacity as James Rosten’s parole officer. However if there is someone better suited to address my query, please forward this to them. I am James Rosten’s daughter, although I haven’t seen him or had any contact with him for nearly twenty years. I grew up in Halifax with my mother and my twin sister, Pamela, both of whom remain there. However, I recently married and moved back to the Ottawa area. We all received notices of my father’s parole. Like my sister and mother, I have no interest in re-establishing contact with him but I do have questions about his medical history. Specifically, about any psychiatric evaluations and diagnoses that have been conducted on him. I understand that this information is confidential, but as his blood relative, it impacts my own medical history and that of my children. Are there reports I can read or, failing that, any mental health professionals who can answer my specific questions?

T
hank you for your help,

P
aige Henriksson

Archie considered the formal prose. It suggested an educated woman familiar with the language of bureaucracy, but, by his calculations, Paige Henriksson couldn’t be more than twenty-three. The twins had been toddlers when Jackie Carmichael was murdered, barely four when he was sent to prison. Why was she asking about Rosten’s mental health? Did she have problems of her own? Did her sister?

Archie hated email. Although it was efficient, it robbed communication of all spontaneity and emotional context. Paige’s note was dispassionate, but beneath the carefully chosen prose lay a quagmire of pain, confusion, and fear. Beneath it all, she was a wounded young woman reaching out across the decades toward a father she barely knew.

Wherever possible, Archie preferred to meet people face to face, as much to respond to their yearning and fear as to their words. Words themselves were not his forte, but rather the emotions that lay at the heart of them, and that was what the PO was smart enough to understand.

Paige had not left an address, but there was a phone number at the bottom of her message. At least phone conversations were more personal than email. Pulling out his cellphone, he dialled the number.

It being the middle of the day, he expected it to go to voicemail and was just composing his message when the phone was snatched up on the fourth ring.

A young, breathy whisper. “Hello?”

“Paige Henriksson, please.”

A pause. Wary. “Speaking.”

He launched into his most professional tone. “This is Reverend Archibald Goodfellow. I’m the community chaplain at Horizon House in Belleville where your father —”

A sharp intake of breath, nothing more.

“His parole officer passed on your note. I hope I can help.”

“I — I don’t need a chaplain,” she said, her voice gaining strength as she recovered her footing. “I just need access to some medical information. Psychiatric reports mainly.”

“That information is confidential, as you noted. But with a signed release from your father —”

“Oh no! No, no. He mustn’t …” She paused and he heard her draw breath again. “I don’t want him to know.”

“I understand,” Archie said. “Maybe if we could meet in person?”

“That’s not necessary. And in any case I can’t get away to Belleville.”

“But I’m going to Ottawa the day after tomorrow,” Archie improvised. “I could meet wherever is convenient.”

“No! I don’t want … it’s just … a couple of simple questions answered, that’s all I need.”

“What questions?”

“Is he a psychopath?”

Archie was startled. “That’s not a simple question, Paige. It’s not even an official psychiatric diagnosis.”

“But it’s a recognized disorder. That’s what I need to know. Is he psychotic, or psychopathic, or a sexual predator?”

He could hear the fear in her voice as she breathed the words. “He doesn’t know where you live, Paige.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then why do you want to know? What’s wrong?”

There was a long pause, during which he half-expected her to hang up. When she spoke, her voice was low. “I have a son. He’s two years old. I know these things are hereditary and I want to know if there are things I need to watch out for.”

He barely noticed his meatloaf arrive. Nancy set it down in the small remaining space between his laptop and helmet, and gave him a wink before slipping wordlessly away. Archie’s uncertainty vanished as the real issue emerged. Here was a young woman afraid for her child.

“Have you talked about it with your son’s doctor?”

“No. He doesn’t know. About my father, I mean. No one knows.”

“Not even your husband?”

“Please! I just need to know….”

“That is a lot to handle on your own.”

“I’ve handled it my whole life,” she retorted. “I just need to talk to the professional who assessed my father, so I’ll know what I’m dealing with.”

“It’s a very small risk, you know. Even with inheritable psychiatric disorders. He has your mother’s genes and your husband’s too.”

“But there are warning signs, early on.”

“Are you worried your son is showing them?”

“He
is
showing them! Tantrums, spiteful, lack of empathy.”

He wanted to tell her the boy was only two, that all two-year-olds had tantrums and lacked empathy. That hers was a normal fear of a young mother dealing with her first child.

But most mothers did not have the blood of a murderer in their veins.

A child’s wail could be heard in the background and she stifled a groan of dismay. Archie searched his conscience for a path through the minefield of legalities. He was not qualified to discuss medical diagnoses, and even if he were, the laws of confidentiality prohibited it. Yet here was a woman who had lived with this fear all her life and who deserved some genuine reassurance. The law be damned.

He took a deep breath. Shut his eyes the better to focus. “I can’t give you any specific information about his health. I am not a doctor and I don’t have his permission. I can tell you, though, that none of those words have ever been used in reference to him.”

“None?”

“You heard right. Like anyone who’s been in prison that long, he’s a bit scared and overwhelmed right now, but —”

The child’s wailing rose an octave. “You know him?”

“Yes, I’ve known him for years. And I think …” Archie surprised himself with the thought that came into his head. “Your son could do much worse than to inherit some of his genes.”

Utter silence. In the background, the child screeched indignantly. Halfway through, the phone slammed down.

Archie sat at the table staring at his meatloaf unhappily. It had grown cold and the gravy was congealing in greasy pools. Despite the nagging unease about Paige, he forced himself to dig in. No point in good food going to waste. He was just polishing off a piece of strawberry pie and turning his thoughts back to Paige when his cellphone rang.

“I’m worried about James Rosten,” Inspector Green said without preamble.

“Why?” The words were out of Archie’s mouth before he could censor himself. As cops go, Green was a decent sort. His job was to protect the public and lock up the bad guys. It’s true that Green had always shown an interest in Rosten and had even come to his parole hearing, although he hadn’t said a word, but it was no secret that he and Rosten had waged a war of letters for almost twenty years. Archie doubted he was calling out of compassion.

“I’m concerned about his risk to reoffend. Or at least to do some harm.”

“You were at the hearing. You heard the opinions of the professionals.”

“Yes, and that’s precisely what got me thinking. We’re looking at two scenarios. Either he really blocked out all memory of the murder and in fact may have committed it in what my wife calls a dissociative state —”

“No one’s suggested that.”

“But that’s the point. No one has figured this guy out, because he’s never let anyone inside his head. The thing is, this kind of blocking is very rare and it’s not just a one-off. It points to a very disturbed individual, the kind who might do it again if something sets him off.”

Archie said nothing. He’d seen some terrifyingly disturbed inmates in his time, stark raving psychotic and out of control. Rosten had never acted remotely like that. He said as much to Green.

“Okay, but prison is a very predictable and regimented environment.”

“That doesn’t mean there aren’t stresses,” Archie said. “As a killer of an innocent young woman, Rosten met his share of scary guys. Don’t forget what put him in the chair.”

“But the signs may be subtle. He’s not psychotic, but my wife is a psychiatric nurse, and here’s what she wants to know. Did he ever seem zoned out? Not responding or not remembering something that happened? Did he have mood swings or personality changes, when he acted out of character or seemed not himself?”

“You mean like in the movies, where someone flips back and forth between different identities?”

“Probably not that extreme but along those lines. If he’s been having little episodes where he blanks out or steps outside himself, he may act unusual or at least bewildered afterwards.”

Archie thought back over the years he’d known Rosten. And most recently to the weeks in Horizon House. “Mike, I’m no shrink, but I have to say Rosten is the most consistent and predictable guy out there. Rational to a fault, maybe. He doesn’t react to things, except to get out his books or his computer and figure out a response.”

“Yeah, but what about after the prison assault? I seem to remember he had panic attacks, even suicidal thoughts.”

“Put yourself in his shoes. Paralyzed and living in fear. Who wouldn’t?”

“True.” Green paused. Archie waited. “So forget what the shrinks and counsellors think. We’ve both seen our share of bad guys. We’re seen them at closer quarters and for longer periods than most shrinks. There is another scenario.”

Archie suspected he knew what was coming. “A con,” he said.

“Not just any con. A master con. It’s not easy to fool counsellors and psychologists and corrections officers and you, not to mention a tough old PO like Maisonneuve.”

“I don’t buy it, Mike. I’ve watched lots of inmates trying to adjust to the outside, and Rosten is just like most of them. He’s scared, he’s lonely, he’s overwhelmed by even the little bit of freedom he has. I’d say some days, like many parolees, he wishes he was back inside. That’s not the behaviour of a master manipulator.”

There was silence on the phone, and Archie pictured Green trying to reconcile the conflicting faces of Rosten. Archie didn’t try to think so hard. He took a man at face value and accepted that he had secrets and contradictions inside that he was never going to expose. But Green had always tried to climb inside the head of the criminals he pursued, the better to catch them. It was his strength as a detective, but at what cost?

“Okay, I hear you,” Archie said. “You’re worried Rosten is not what he seems and he may be up to something.”

“Yes. I wonder about his sudden decision to seek parole. I wonder if he has an ulterior motive for wanting to be on the outside.”

“He’s under very tight supervision. I’ll keep an extra eye on him, but right now he just seems like a lonely parolee trying to find his way forward in a strange city with no family that cares to connect. I’m trying to encourage socializing. He has no one except —”

Before he could change course, Green pounced. “Except what?”

“Except nothing.” Archie heaved a sigh of resignation. “I got an email from his daughter. She’s concerned about medical implications.” He filled Green in his phone conversation with Paige. “But I have a suspicion there’s more to her request. I won’t tell James about it yet, because I don’t want to stir up old feelings or get his hopes up. But I will follow up with the daughter. See if I can soften her up a bit, maybe build some bridges so he at least has that connection in his life.”

“Jesus, Archie. Go easy on that. That was a very traumatized, betrayed wife and mother twenty years ago. God knows what kind of scars Rosten has left them with.”

“You know me, Mike. If there’s a bridge to be built, I’m going to get out the hammer and saw. In the end, that’s the biggest healer there is. Next to … you know.”

The real estate office was a tall, old-fashioned house with white clapboard siding and a wide front porch. Red and yellow tulips were massed in beds below the porch and a shiny black pickup truck sat in the drive.