It was the first time since we’d started the group that she exhibited this level of emotion. And I was glad.
“It doesn’t matter if it destroys the society,” Anne said. She was angry now, too. “If it means that even one man’s life will be saved, I don’t see how we have any choice. I don’t even understand how it can be a conversation.”
“You can’t be serious,” Ginny said. “Are you willing to have your husband find out? Your boss? Your kids? Your in-laws? Your friends? I’m not. I absolutely am not. Besides, what good will telling the police do? Aid them in warning all the men that they are targets? For God’s sake, there isn’t one man from the society who doesn’t know that by now.”
“Except it hasn’t helped,” Anne argued.
“This is not a discussion,” Shelby said. “We all took an oath. So did every man who joined us. We cannot tell anyone anything.”
“I think this is a discussion,” I said. “And an important one.”
Shelby turned on me. “You would. You talked to that reporter. Why did you do that? You told us that you would keep our secret with us. But you talked to the press.”
The attack was easier for everyone to focus on than the discussion of whether or not they should talk to the police. Ten sets of eyes-angry, hurt and accusatory-turned on me.
“No, Shelby. I didn’t go to the reporter. She came to me. And I didn’t discuss anything about the society with her. You can be sure of that. My comments were about what we can expect from a sexualized serial killer. Not about the men who have been killed or what might tie them together.”
“But you may still be talking to her. How can we know you aren’t?”
I wound up explaining privilege to them once again. I needed them to understand that it was up to one of them to go to the police and help them in figuring out who was behind these crimes. At the same time, they needed to trust me if I was going to help them work through their anger, shame and guilt over what had happened.
“The U.S. Supreme Court established the psychotherapist-patient privilege in the federal courts in its Jaffee v. Redmond decision in 1996. The psychiatric community had always operated on this premise but finally it went to the courts. For almost fifty years, lawyers and doctors had been trying to clearly establish that communication between patients and their psychotherapists was in need of a very high level of protection.”
They were listening. Intently. Only Shelby seemed to be ignoring what I was saying. She was looking out the window, staring into the tangled tree branches, lit by the streetlamp.
“There is another precedent-the Tarasoff case,” I continued, “which established just how far that privilege extended. In that court case, it was decided that psychiatrists do have an obligation to warn a third party when a patient has threatened that third party. But none of you has told me the name of the next person or persons at risk. And as far as I know, none of you knows. So I have no right to go to the police myself.”
“You are saying that as if you think we have the right to go,” Cara said.
“An obligation to go,” Anne said.
“No. No. That is just not going to happen,” Shelby yelled, her head swinging around to face the group again. “What are you going to tell them? What names are you even going to give them? We don’t know one another’s real names, for Christ’s sake. This is insane. We have a trust to uphold.”
“At what price?” Anne asked.
No one said anything.
“We don’t want you to talk to the press anymore,” Shelby said to me, obviously trying to change the subject.
“That’s not something that has anything to do with you, I’m sorry,” I said as kindly as I could.
“It does. Don’t you understand? If we hadn’t hired you, if we hadn’t paid you, you wouldn’t know anything about this case. You wouldn’t be getting your name in the paper. You wouldn’t be getting patients because of us.”
I am not made of ice. Pushed, I can get just as annoyed as anyone else. And yet, in this setting, understanding what I did about the stress these women were under-and Shelby in particular-I made an extra effort to control my own emotions so I could help them with theirs.
“Shelby, I didn’t talk to the press to get more patients. Why would you think that?”
“We’re giving you power,” she said.
In her world, this was a transaction and power was her currency. Several of the women in the room nodded their heads, agreeing, understanding what she said. The very reason the society had been created was to allow them to act out their desires to metaphorically-and perhaps literally, from what I had seen on the videotape-be on top.
“You see it as power, but I don’t. You hired me to help you cope with a disturbing situation. That doesn’t put me in a position of weakness any more than it puts you in a position of strength. This isn’t a battle between us.”
“And it won’t be as long as you don’t talk to the press.”
Davina had been listening intently, but saying very little. “Shelby, back off, will you? Can we just talk about what we might be able to do? How we feel about this? How to handle all this shit? I go to the office. I snap at people. I’m angry. Then I get sad. I want to cry but I’m afraid that, if I let myself cry, my friends or my family will ask me what’s wrong. What the fuck am I supposed to tell them? How do I short-circuit the grieving process so I can get back to my life?”
“You can’t. You-” I looked around and focused, one after the other, on each of the women. “None of you can short-circuit this process. That’s why it’s important to talk it out here. To feel free to let out whatever you want to.” My glance stopped at Ginny.
“I have something I want to let out,” she said. “I think I know who might be behind this.”
Forty-Nine
Nina must have been waiting for the group to leave because she came to my office within five minutes of the last woman going. “Can we talk?” she asked.
I nodded. “But not now. I have to get home for Dulcie.”
“Do the two of you have plans for dinner?”
“No.”
“Why don’t I go home with you? We can walk. Talk on the way. Then the three of us can get a bite.”
She didn’t wait until we reached the street but started in as we descended the staircase from the second floor to the lobby. “We have to work this out,” she said. “It’s not good for you or me. And it’s not good for the institute.”
It had been several days since our argument, and that was a first for us. In all the years since my mother had died, Nina and I hadn’t ever had an argument that had lasted longer than a few hours.
“It’s even worse for the four men who are dead,” I said.
She opened the heavy door that led to the street. It was evening already, but like so many other days that fall, the weather was relatively warm. I was wearing a blazer with a sweater thrown over my shoulders and knotted around my neck. Nina had on a camel-colored shawl, theatrically draped around her.
The stores were well lit, and as we passed boutique after boutique I saw the two of us mirrored in the glass. I was so used to seeing our reflections, side by side.
“Are you going to change your mind about how I’ve been handling the Scarlet Society?”
“It’s the police I have the problem with,” Nina said. “That and why, knowing how I felt, you brought the issue up in our weekly meeting.”
“I didn’t know I was being censored.”
“Can you stop acting like a chastised teenager and lay off the sarcastic tone?”
“Will that help? I’m still not going to agree with you about this. Things are only getting worse,” I said, and told her what had happened in the group.
That took us to Seventy-fourth Street, where we stopped and waited for the light to turn so we could cross. “We’ve fought before, but we’ve never been on such opposite sides of the argument. I want advice from someone who’s willing to help me explore my options, and you are rigidly holding to your own position.”