“What about the mother, Howard’s wife? Didn’t she blame herself?”
“I don’t think she was capable of blaming herself. She moved out right away. The last time Flynn saw her was at the funeral.
Howard had made all the arrangements himself. He did everything himself. For a while-a few months-he kept to his old routine. He went to work every day and he did his job; he kept his grief to himself. Then something happened, some kind of delayed reaction, I guess. He started to drink and he didn’t stop.
And then Jeffries started in on him, ridiculing him, humiliating him in open court. Finally, he just said the hell with it and told Jeffries exactly what he thought. He did it drunk, but I think he would have done it sober, there was so much rage and hurt bottled up inside him. It wasn’t a question whether he was going to explode, but when, and Jeffries was so incredibly easy to hate.”
Jennifer pulled her knees up under her chin and wrapped her arms around them. “Is that why he has such strong feelings about this Danny? Because of what happened to his own boy?”
I did not understand at first, but then, searching her eyes, I began to grasp her meaning. “I hadn’t thought of it,” I admitted,
“but I suppose you must be right. I’m sure he still blames himself; maybe he thinks he can make up for it a little if he can help someone else.”
Turned down at the corners, her wide mouth looked like the smile of a brokenhearted child. “Maybe, in a strange way, he thinks this boy is his son. You told me he’s a three-year-old in a grown-up’s body. He’s what Howard’s son would be if he hadn’t drowned, if he had just disappeared, and then, after all these years, been discovered.” She looked at me through half-closed eyes. “We do that, don’t we: imagine that someone we haven’t seen in a long time hasn’t really changed, not deep down inside, no matter how much older we both are?”
I wondered if she was talking about us, and as I watched a bittersweet expression form on her gentle face I felt a knot in my stomach, afraid I had done something to disappoint her, afraid that I had changed more than she had thought. Her gaze grew more distant and she pulled her knees tighter under her chin.
“Is everything all right?” I asked.
At first I did not think she had heard me, but then, a moment later, like someone clearing away the cobwebs, she batted her lashes twice and sat up. With a cheerful look in her eyes, she came around the table and sat in my lap, her arms wrapped around my neck. “I love you Joseph Antonelli, and I’ll marry you whenever you want. Tomorrow, if you like.”
She let go of my neck, and for a long time, the bare presence of a smile flickering across her fragile, vulnerable mouth, looked at me like someone peering at their own half-forgotten reflection. Without a word, without a sound, she gently rose and, taking me in her soft, naked hand, led me back upstairs.
Twenty-two
Dr. Friedman was waiting for me. A nervous smile started on his mouth, failed, and then was just about to start again, when he let go of my hand and, glancing away, gestured toward the armless chair in front of the metal institutional desk.
“I was beginning to think you didn’t want to see me,” I said.
His ankle was crossed over his knee and his hands were clasped together in his lap. Repeatedly he clenched his teeth while his lashes beat rapidly over his eyes. I wondered if he had heard what I had said.
“Why do you want to see Elliott again?” he asked presently, his attention concentrated on the quick, abrupt movement of his thumbs.
He could have asked that question anytime during the last three weeks. Helen had tried to get him on the phone every day, and every day there had been some new excuse, some new reason why Dr. Friedman had not been able to return any of the calls that had been made.
“I don’t care if I see Elliott or not.” I turned over the fingers of my right hand and pretended to study my nails. “I came to see you.”
His lashes stopped blinking. Slowly, he lifted his eyes. “You came to see me?”
I examined my nails more closely. “Yes, to see you.” I closed my fingers into a fist and shoved it down next to my leg. “Do you remember a patient by the name of Jacob Whittaker?”
He turned the swivel chair and placed both hands on top of the desk. “You mean the patient who murdered the judge?”
“Yes-the judge, Calvin Jeffries: the judge who married Elliott Winston’s wife. You remember: We talked about him when I was here before.”
Tapping his fingers together, he gave me a look meant to suggest that he was far too busy to remember much of anything we might have discussed.
“You remember,” I said, returning his look with one that said I did not believe him.
“Yes, of course. The name escaped me,” he said, brushing it off. “What would you like to know about him? There isn’t much I can tell you, I’m afraid. He wasn’t one of my patients.”
“Whose patient was he?”
“I don’t know. I’d have to check.”
“You didn’t know him at all?”
“No, not directly. You have to understand, Mr. Antonelli. We have hundreds of patients, and we’re constantly getting new ones.”
I leaned forward and looked straight at him. “But you knew that he had escaped?”
“No, actually I didn’t. You see, strictly speaking, he didn’t escape. He was out on a pass and that time he didn’t come back.”
“That time? You mean he had been out before?”
Friedman seemed surprised that I had even asked. “Yes, of course. Whittaker had been here for years. He was quite stable-
so long as he stayed on his medication. He was in the process of being transitioned back into the community.” He hesitated before he added, “It had not been an entirely smooth transition.
He had an apartment for a while, and a job washing dishes at a restaurant. But he didn’t want to follow the rules. That was a couple of years ago. This time, when he was let out, it was to be for just a few days at a time, and, instead of allowing him to have his own apartment, he was put in a halfway house.”
“What rules?” I asked. “What did he do that brought him back inside?”
He sank back in the chair and shrugged. “I don’t really know.
As I say, he wasn’t my patient. I only know about this now because, after what happened, the case became the subject of a staff review.”
“And?”
He raised his eyebrows. “And what?”
“What was the result of the staff review?”
“Everything had been done properly, based on the best evidence of his condition,” he said, as he lowered his gaze.
“He was here because he murdered his father, if I recall correctly. And despite that, he’s let out and murders-or I should say slaughters-a judge, and everything was done properly?”
Friedman sighed. “Look, Mr. Antonelli,” he said, raising his eyes just far enough to cast an irritated sideways glance at me,
“we do our best. I’ll be the first to admit that our best isn’t always good enough. But what would you have us do?”
Sitting up straight, he waved his hand at the window behind him. The bright clear light from the cloudless summer sky left a dull glow on the grimy dirt-covered glass.
“We try to make people well so they can live out there. We’re not a prison, we’re a hospital. Sometimes people are sicker than we think; sornetimes they get better and then get sick again. It’s awful what happened. But given the same diagnosis, the same course of treatment, the same results from the medication he was taking: Would I release a patient into a transition program? Yes, absolutely. Would I be completely confident he would not suffer some kind of relapse, have some kind of psychotic episode? No, I would not. I know that isn’t very satisfying, but there you have it. That’s what we do here. We treat the sick.”