Blameless (9 page)

“So you’re saying there’s nothing you can do?” Diana asked, anger lapping at her protective numbness, melting it a bit. “What are you going to tell the reporters?”

“I’ve had lots of experience with those sniffers,” Levine said as they climbed the stairs to the front door. “Don’t worry about me. I can handle them just fine.”

The two patrolmen were coming down from the second floor. “Clean as a whistle,” one of them said.

Levine handed Diana his card. “You get your lawyer to call me and, if he gives me something to go on, then may be I’ll be able to check out a few things for you. But as it stands now, not much can be done.” He held out his hand, looking honestly sorry.

Diana shook his hand and thanked him, then opened the door just wide enough for the three policemen to slip out. As she closed the door against the hubbub Levine’s appearance had created among the sniffers, the telephone began to ring. Figuring it must be Craig, and not knowing if her answering machine was still in one piece, Diana picked up the kitchen phone. It was Valerie.

Valerie was pleased with Diana’s refusal to talk to Herb Levine, but horrified at the theft of the journal. “Now let me get this straight,” Valerie said. “You write down all the erotic feelings you have about your patients and that makes the feelings go away?”

“It’s not just erotic,” Diana said. “Sometimes you might feel anger or frustration or overprotectiveness.”

“And this works?”

“It’s called countertransference,” Diana tried again, all too aware of the difficulty a layperson would have with the concept. “It’s part of the therapeutic process. The patient relates to you as if you were someone in his or her past—and you can’t help taking on some of the feelings that accompany the role he projects on you. A therapist can’t act on the feelings—but you need some way to deal with them.”

There was silence for a moment before Valerie finally said, “Sounds weird to me.” Then she demanded that Diana reconstruct some of the more damaging passages.

Diana searched her memory, her mind flipping back through the entries she had written in her journal over the past three years. Many of them were quite benign: a description of how infuriated she was at Sandy’s grandmother for her relentless fault-finding; a sheepish admission that she really couldn’t stand Ethan; notes on a dream she had in which she protected Bruce from his brother by waving a huge gun in the brother’s face.

A flush crept up her neck as she remembered the entries about James; many were sexual—and those that were were uniformly wild. A hot, unrestrained fantasy of ripping each other’s clothes off in a utility room at the Boston Common garage, the thrill of possible discovery sending her into a flurry of multiple orgasms. A slow, steamy fantasy of making love to James on the stage of a large lecture hall, in front of two hundred mesmerized, note-taking students.

“Diana,” Valerie said, interrupting her rumination, “it’s imperative I know everything you can remember.”

Diana took a long, faltering breath. “Most of it’s pretty dull. But, uh, some of it …” She paused and tried again. “Well, some of the entries are sexual—but they’re nothing really unusual. They’re the kind of fantasies everyone has.” Diana knew that although her words were true, in the current context, the journal entries would be construed as anything but usual. “You know, sex in strange places …”

“Such as?”

Diana thought of the entry she had written one afternoon this past June. It had been a hot, sweltering day and James had been dressed in a pair of cut-off jeans and a red tank top. He was tan and lean and his biceps gleamed with a thin layer of sweat; when he moved, his muscles rippled with the grace and strength of a stalking lion, and when he laughed, his eyes flashed blue and luminous against his tanned skin.

After he left, Diana had poured her unabashed desire into her journal. She had described how, throughout the entire session, all she could think of was ripping off James’s shirt. Of their eyes locking and the aching pain of the passion she would feel as he slowly unhooked his shorts. Of his beautiful body, naked and sweat-covered and wanting her as much as she wanted him. She had written, in excruciating detail, how she and James had made love on the floor of her office, the old creaky air conditioner drying the sweat from their bodies. She groaned softly. “A closet, a classroom,” she whispered. “My office.”

“You and Hutchins?”

“Yes.”

Valerie was silent for a long moment, then she said, “This is bad.” Although her voice was calm, Diana detected a note of amazement in it.

“It was only for me,” Diana tried to explain. “No one was ever supposed to see it.”

“If the journal surfaces—and I think we have to assume that it will,” Valerie said as if Diana hadn’t spoken, “we’ll immediately file a motion in limine to stop—”

“A motion in what?” Diana interrupted.

“A motion in limine. It’s a request to prevent something from being introduced as evidence. From what you’ve told me, the last thing we want with this sexual abuse charge is for your journal to be a part of the court record.”

“My journal can’t be evidence,” Diana cried in a horrified whisper. “It’s my journal. It’s private. It’s confidential—and it was stolen.”

“All that’s true enough, but the confidentiality argument has traditionally been weak,” Valerie said. “Once the journal’s existence and contents are accepted as fact, Hutchins’s attorney will undoubtedly file a motion for court ruling on admissibility, citing its direct relevance to your guilt or innocence—stolen or not.”

“But someone broke in here. They busted through my locks and ransacked my office. A crime was committed!” Diana’s voice grew louder as her fury completely thawed the numbness. “Doesn’t that make a difference? It
has
to make a difference!”

“If this were a criminal case, you’d have a point,” Valerie said slowly. “Civil law’s not so defense-oriented. Seems to me, I remember a Missouri case where stolen records were admitted into evidence …” She paused and Diana could hear her typing into a computer. “Nothing on first query,” she said. “But either way, it’s a long shot—we may be better off with privilege against self-incrimination …” Her voice trailed off and the tapping began again. “Think it was Jill Hutchins?”

“Who else could it be? Who else would care about my journal?”

“Lots of people. The press. Some loco patient.” Valerie paused. “Know anyone who would benefit from you being smeared? A colleague whose promotion might be assured if you were out of the picture?”

“My business doesn’t work like that,” Diana said. “I’m pretty much on my own.”

“You and your husband having any marital problems?” Valerie asked.

“Yeah, right—Craig broke in here and ransacked his own house. You and I both know that Jill Hutchins either did it or arranged for it to be done. She’s the only one who would benefit—”

“Did she know about the journal?” Valerie interrupted.

Diana was silent for a moment. James had known about the journal; he could have told Jill. “It’s possible.”

“How many other people knew about it? Where you kept it? What was in it?”

Diana paused again, mentally running down the list: her peer supervisory group; Craig; her borderline therapy group. Telling her peer group and Craig was fine, but why had she told her borderline group? Her heart hit her stomach. How could she have been so stupid? She remembered the day she had discussed it with them. It was about two years ago; Ethan wasn’t in the group yet and it had been just James, Sandy, Bruce and Terri. Diana had suggested that they each begin keeping a diary to track their emotional states, and had used her own journal as an example of what a powerful and helpful tool it could be. What had ever possessed her to listen to Adrian’s advice about “being real,” about the importance of the therapist’s personal revelations to the borderline patient’s identification process? What a crock of shit. “A few,” she said slowly.

“Look,” Valerie said, “you make a complete listing for me of everyone who knew about it—”

“No one really knew what was in it.”

“—and exactly how much they knew,” Valerie continued. “Then I want you to keep quiet and sit tight. Let me check this out with a couple of my partners—we’re moving beyond the parameters of your usual malpractice suit, here. This kind of thing just doesn’t come up that often.”

“Sit tight?” Diana asked, her voice rising again. “I’m just supposed to sit around and wait for the next disaster to strike?”

“And what do you propose as an alternative?”

“Something. Anything,” Diana said. “Why can’t you tell the police we suspect Jill? Have them search her apartment. Maybe they’ll find the journal—or at least get her to admit that she stole it.”

“If you think Boston’s finest are going to waste their time tracking down suspected diary thieves”—Valerie made a strange noise that must have been a chuckle—“you’ve been seeing too many movies.”

Diana said nothing. She wasn’t going to let Valerie or Levine—or anybody—stop her. There were private detectives. Or she would confront Jill herself.

“Look,” Valerie continued, “there’s no reason for you to get involved in this. Just go on with your normal routine and let me handle it from my end.”

Diana was silent, trying to remember what James had said about Jill’s schedule. Something about her losing her job as a graphic artist for Marshall’s arid free-lancing at home.

“Okay?” Valerie asked. “I’m your attorney, and your insurance premiums are paying a lot of money for my advice—so take it.”

Diana was so distracted that she nodded.

“Well?” Valerie demanded.

“Okay,” Diana said quickly. “Okay. Sure.”

“And before I forget,” Valerie added, “I’m supposed to pass on the message that you’ve got an appointment Monday morning.”

“Appointment?”

“Jill’s attorney, Ron Engdahl, called to tell me that James Hutchins’s will is being read at his office at nine o’clock Monday. As you know, you’re on the list of beneficiaries.”

“Do I have to go?” Diana asked.

“You don’t have to, but you probably should—especially if you really are getting a big chunk of money.”

“I don’t want the money.”

“Find out what you have before you decide you don’t want it—and if Jill is going to fight you for it.” Valerie snapped. She paused for a second, then offered, “Do you want me to come with you?”

“Let me talk to Craig about it.” After copying down the necessary details, Diana hung up. She dropped into a chair at the kitchen table and stared out into the shadowy alley. Idly she watched a gust of wind playing with what appeared to be a clump of used napkins. The wind tossed them up and down, twirled them in a jerky two-step, hurled them hard into the brick wall. And then the wind died, allowing the whole mess to drop unceremoniously into a puddle of muddy water.

She had finally caught a break, Diana thought wryly a few minutes later when she returned to her office and found the answering machine still connected to the telephone, all the attendant numbers and lights lit in their proper places. Now she would be able to screen for Craig’s call. Craig. What was he going to say about the journal? How was he going to feel if the contents were revealed in court? Diana thought again of the graphic detail of some of the entries, and despair rolled through her. How would Craig be able to hold his head up in the office? How could he look his clients in the eye? She had to get the journal from Jill before the courts, or Craig, or anyone, saw what was in it.

Diana jumped as the phone at her elbow rang. She let the machine intercept the call. The
Globe
. Apparently the reporters hadn’t been satisfied with Levine’s statement. They must have sniffed out that there was more to the story than what he had told them. She didn’t pick up the phone.

Instead she stood in the middle of the ravaged room, her anger growing. She would go to Jill’s right now. She would get her journal back before it did any damage. She reached for her coat. No, she had left an urgent message for Craig; she had to wait. He would be wild with worry if he called and got no answer. He would be sure there was something wrong with the baby.

Before she even realized what she was doing, Diana began to straighten up the mess. She pushed the file cabinets back against the wall and gathered books from the floor. She kept herself busy organizing and rearranging as the calls kept coming in. The
Boston Inquirer
. A patient canceling an appointment. She shelved her social psych books next to the few sociology books that she had. She stood back and admired her work, then picked up a couple of anthropology texts and placed them next to the sociology section.

An hour went by, and Craig still hadn’t called. The office looked much better, but Diana was feeling worse. The longer it took him to call back, the more worried she became. If she had been able to reach him when it had first happened, she would have just blurted out the whole story. But now, now that she had had time to reflect and remember, she was growing obsessed with how best to present it to him, how much to tell him, how to soften the blow so that it would hurt the least.

She had tried to explain counter transference to Craig, but knew he didn’t really understand—although he had listened carefully and nodded in the appropriate places. Diana realized that for a person who had never experienced the transference-countertransference of therapy, it was an almost impossible concept to comprehend.

In James’s case, he had needed to face the childhood abuse he had repressed. Transference was what had happened when James had projected his feelings about his uncle to Diana: his need for Hank Hutchins’s approval; his awe of his idol, the only adult who had ever shown him any attention or affection; his need to explore his budding sexuality. Countertransference was what Diana felt in response to James’s feelings. She had handled James’s awe and his demand for her unconditional approval, but his sexuality had been so strong—and he had been so damn good-looking—that she had responded to him with a fullblown case of lust. Her feelings had gotten out of control, and she had turned to her journal.

She shoved the books back onto the shelves. Things had been bad enough for Craig before this. How does a man feel when his wife’s name is besmirched? When her picture is on the front page of the newspaper? When he knows that everyone is wondering about them, about their marriage, wondering if indeed Diana had had an affair behind his back? However Craig felt, he had responded with unflinching support—public and private. But this new twist might demand too much of him. And as much as she knew he would deny it, she was afraid the journal might make him wonder if there was any truth to the allegations.