“Let me ask you, Mr. Pomeroy, in the remote possibility this is going to work, where does it get me in the end?”
“The ding ward instead of the big house. You’re in a deep hole, Nick, especially since you’ve already been convicted of one attack on a woman. I watched some of that in court, by the way. The jury was lapping it up, she did an artful job on you.”
That’s where Faloon saw him, the Adeline Angella fiasco, lawyers would wander in and watch Beauchamp in action. He wants to ask Pomeroy what’s the story on the Topeka condo developer who was out till 2 a.m., and are there other suspects, but the counsellor is off on this insanity sidetrack.
“A reasonable scenario-you’ll correct me if I’m wrong-goes like this: You’re at that outdoors cafe having a coffee. Word comes down about the murder, you go into a panic state, you lose your real identity. The stress causes you to retreat into the role of Gertrude Heeredam. Again.”
“Again?”
“Like the night before.”
Faloon feels a chill. “I am carefully listening to this. Is our theory that the victim was snuffed by Gertrude Heeredam, and that’s going to make Nick Faloon not guilty?”
“You have a better idea?”
“Aren’t you going to ask if I did it?”
“I don’t want to ask.”
“I am anxious you should know. I am as innocent as an angel, Mr. Pomeroy, at least the murder part.”
“Okay, then you had better explain how your sperm managed to find its way into her vagina.”
Faloon goes into shock.
“You see, Nick, the Crown particulars have the semen coming up DNA-positive for you.”
Faloon can’t find words, his mouth opens and shuts like a hooked, landed fish. He feels woozy. “That’s not…Mr. Pomeroy, there’s got to be a mistake! Or someone else has got the same DNA!”
“Do you have an identical twin, Nick?”
“No.”
“Then the chance of coincidence is roughly on a par with your winning this year’s Miss Universe Pageant. Let’s get back to Dr. Sloan. He’ll conclude it’s not important you don’t know Dutch, and that you’re probably fragmented into different women, as in this first case study…”
Distantly, Faloon hears the clanging of a cell door closing.
Fear concentrates the mind, and Faloon is absorbing his lessons, getting ready for Dr. Sloan. He’s even starting to think he may be sharing, as the text says, “two or more distinct identities that recurrently take control of the patient’s behaviour.”
This insanity bit might be his only hope. Guilty means the whole book. Pomeroy told him he could get out of the shrink tank after maybe a five-spot on condition he stays on Prozac, or whatever keeps you from dissociating.
Dark thoughts intrude. Was it truly his DNA? What if there is a murderer inside the Owl, unrecognized, crawling from his skin? A rapist…He tells himself to get real. But this is far worse than the other false charge, Adeline Angella, the magazine writer. She inveigled to meet him in a bar after Beauchamp got him off the Kashmir Sapphire caper, wanted to know all about “the fascinating world of the jewel thief,” as if he was going to tell her. How had he been so sappy as to go up to her apartment?
In the lounge, where he’s reading the last of the case studies, Faloon is interrupted by the defrocked priest, a cherubic sixty-year-old, Father Rechard, who originally comes from Quebec and is impressed with Faloon’s French-his parents spoke it at home. “Something seems to be troubling you, my son.”
He wants to tell him Satan has fucked him from behind. Someone had to be lying about the DNA. Why?
“Should there be any troubles you want to relieve yourself of, I will be happy to extend an ear.”
Faloon likes Father Rechard, despite his disability, likes the well-mannered way he has of talking. He thinks of confessing to him. But to what? He’s not particularly religious, though he prayed to the Prophet, Jesus, Buddha, you name it, Krishna, to send him an angel. Hoping it might be Beauchamp.
“Faloon!” a guard calls out. “Medical visit!”
He is led through a series of buzzing doors to the clinic, where Dr. Sloan is reading a poster about correct condom use. He is overweight, has the jaded look of a man who hasn’t gone far in his choice of career. Faloon is urged onto a plastic chair-everything is fixed to the wall or floor, maybe in case of tantrums.
Sloan doesn’t want to waste time, the hearing is tomorrow, he has to get his report written tonight. He asks Faloon about his medical history, which is uneventful until the shrinker asks him about any strange occurrences in his past. Faloon explains he has been bothered since a teenager about a series of lapses-he isn’t sure what to call them-in which he found himself wearing women’s clothes.
He knows the shrinker will test this against other evidence, and when asked about witnesses to these episodes he gives a couple of names he already supplied to Pomeroy, old friends. Sloan wants to know about his parents.
“There’s only me, I lost my…it’s something I’d rather not talk about.”
Sloan’s appetite is whetted, so Faloon tells him the story, haltingly, as he fights emotion, about how when he was a child in Lebanon, the Falange came into his village and shot all the men, including his father. Only the women escaped. Sloan’s brow furrows, and he begins making notes.
“But many were raped, including my mother…I’m sorry, I can’t, I…Oh, goodness, he does carry on, that weakling.”
Upon hearing this feminine lilt, Sloan looks up. Faloon can’t tell from his expression if he’s buying or not, but ploughs on. “He just has no spine, can’t face the harsh realities. That’s why he became a crook, doctor, without his parents there was no moral upbringing.”
“Who are you right now?” Sloan is squinting at him.
“I’m Samantha, I think…I’m confused.” He begins shaking.
“Mr. Faloon…”
The Owl perks up. “Yes, doctor?”
“Who are you?”
“Same guy I’ve always been.”
“Did you just have one of those, as you call them, lapses?”
“Not that I’m aware. Except I forgot what we were talking about.”
Sloan pulls some diagrams from his briefcase. “I’m going to put you through some tests.”
As Faloon stares at an ink blot, he wonders if he should add about the sleepwalking, but decides not to press it.
“I’d say that looks like a woman dancing.”
“Hmm,” says Sloan.
That evening, the Owl is in the lounge watching the news with the guard who threw his wife off a balcony and one of the squealers. The violent images from the Middle East disturb him, make him queasy. Another suicide bombing.
“Fucking Arabs,” says the guard.
“They don’t respect life,” says Faloon, who doesn’t advertise his heritage in these difficult times.
He is happy when the TV switches to local news, a bunch of people waving placards that read, “Save Gwendolyn.” His seatmates are bored by this and start talking, so he doesn’t pick up why Gwendolyn needs saving, maybe she’s also up on false charges.
“What was all that shit you were studying?” asks the squealer, whose name is Mario, and they call him Lanza. Except to be polite, Faloon doesn’t make efforts to relate to him, a guy who’s looking to get reduced to a deuce for ratting on a big-time dealer in nose product.
“Correspondence course.”
“Look at those horses’ asses,” says the guard.
Faloon focuses on the image on the screen, two people up in some kind of tree fort, the announcer carrying on about an injunction tomorrow. Then he is startled to see Arthur Beauchamp, in ragged coveralls, sitting on a small tractor, being interviewed, the ocean behind him, a nice house.
“Clem Keddidlehopper,” says the guard.
Faloon sends him a nasty look.
“I will be there to support her,” Mr. Beauchamp is saying.
“Will you be defending her in person, sir?” asks the interviewer.
“No, it is always a wise practice to hire lawyers for this sort of thing. I am a simple farmer.” Faloon knows he’ll have to give up on any daydreams that Mr. Beauchamp will come to his rescue.