Breaking the Silence (25 page)

On the drive back to Lake Ashton, Laura could think only of Sarah’s torturous memories about Joe and the evil aura surrounding Saint Margaret’s. It wasn’t until she was halfway home that she remembered the cryptic notes of warning she’d received in the mail. Maybe the writer of those notes was not trying to keep Sarah isolated and lonely. Maybe they were simply trying to protect her from a past too painful to remember.

H
E WAS GOING TO SLEEP WITH
B
ETHANY TONIGHT
. I
T HAD BEEN
a long time, and he’d been thinking about it all day.

Except…Bethany was not in a great mood. She’d been quiet at the restaurant, and even quieter since they’d returned to his cabin. Sitting next to him on the sofa, she sipped the decaf he’d made her and stared blankly at his aquarium, not saying a word.

He put his arm around her. “I feel like I’m with Emma tonight,” he said, “having to guess what you’re thinking.” He touched her temple lightly with his fingers. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

“Nothing,” she said.

A loaded response. Whatever was bothering her, he had to deal with it before they went to bed. Sleeping with Bethany when she was annoyed was never a good idea. Whatever was disturbing her would come out immediately after they’d made love, and he’d be up all night trying to make amends.

He tried to think back to when her sullen mood had started, and the answer came to him quickly: she’d been upset from the moment she’d arrived at his cabin, her overnight bag slung over her shoulder, and found him on the phone with Laura.

Emma and her friend, Cory, were pretending their Barbies worked at an aquarium, Laura had told him, and the entire bookshelf had been converted into doll-size offices in the aquarium building.

Then she told him about her disturbing visit to Sarah that afternoon, something unbelievable about Sarah’s husband pretending to be a psychiatric patient and getting himself lobotomized in the process.

That’s when Bethany showed up, loudly announcing her arrival, and Dylan had cringed at her timing. Laura must think he had a constant string of women parading through his house.

“I’m interrupting again,” Laura had said. He hadn’t bothered denying it this time. He told her they could talk again tomorrow and thanked her for calling.

“Who’s that?” Bethany had asked when he got off the phone.

“Laura.” He told her about the Barbies and the aquarium and the bookshelf, while Bethany stared at him as if he’d gone mad.

“I can’t believe you’re talking about Barbie dolls,” she said. Then she kissed him and poured him a glass of wine, but there was a stiffness in her movements that let him know she was not pleased. Was that what was still bugging her now, hours later?

He gave her shoulders a squeeze. “I know something’s bothering you,” he said. “It’s not ‘nothing.’ Tell me what’s going on.”

Bethany leaned forward to set her mug on the coffee table, then turned toward him, escaping his arm in the process. “Do you know how many times you said the name ‘Emma’ tonight?” she asked.

He shrugged. “A few, I guess.”

“Thirty-four,” Bethany said. “And I only started counting at the restaurant.”

“You
counted?
What was the point in—”

“And how about ‘Laura’?” Bethany didn’t wait for him to answer. “Twenty-three.”

Twenty-three?
“Come on, Beth—”

“You say you’re not interested in Emma’s mother, but you sure talked about her enough,” she said.” And guess how many times you said the name ‘Bethany’?”

He knew he was not going to win this game, no matter what he answered. “I don’t know,” he said, giving up.

“Twice, Dylan.
Twice
.” There was anger in her eyes. “And now you expect me to stay overnight, don’t you?”

“I thought you wanted to,” he said. “You brought your—”

She stood up. “Forget it! I’m not staying.” She marched toward the kitchen where she’d left her overnight bag.

“If it bothered you so much when I talked about Emma, why didn’t you just say so?” he asked, angry now himself as he followed her into the kitchen. “Were you too busy counting? Too busy trying to trip me up somehow?”

Pulling the strap of the bag over her shoulder, she headed for the door. “Good old Bethany,” she said. “She’s always there whenever you need her. You can dump all your problems on her, and she listens with sympathy. And she’ll sleep with you, too! What a pal! Well, I’m sick of being your pal, Dylan.” She let the screen door slam behind her as she left the house.

Dazed, Dylan stared after her. What the hell had just happened? One minute they were sipping coffee and cuddling on the sofa, the next minute she’d blown sky-high. It had been building in her all night, obviously. Building in her while he’d blathered on about Emma.

He called her half an hour later, when he knew she’d be home, but she refused to talk to him.

“Don’t call me, okay?” she said. “Don’t call until you’ve figured out what you want.” There was a pause, and he knew she was crying. “I love you, Dylan,” she said. “I know you don’t feel the same way, and I can’t wait any longer for you. And…I guess I’d better tell you that I’m going to sleep with…someone else. For all I know, you’re never going to get over this fixation.”

Hanging up the phone, he lay back on the sofa. The aquarium was the only light in the room, and he watched one of the fish glide smoothly from one end of the tank to the other. He remembered telling Emma that he watched the fish when he was upset or sad. Well, he was both those things now.

He wanted to see the aquarium building Emma had created in the bookshelf. He wanted to watch her play with it. Had she named her fish? How would he ever know? Those names would stay locked in her head forever. No, not forever. Just until she was ready to start talking again.

Bethany was right: he was consumed with his thoughts about his daughter.

But what was this bit about Laura? he wondered. Had he really said her name twenty-three times?

L
AURA RETURNED TO THE RETIREMENT HOME THE NEXT DAY
. She’d slept poorly the night before, worried that she’d left Sarah alone with memories of her husband’s tragedy. One good thing about her preoccupation with Sarah: it prevented her from stewing over the fact that Dylan had a woman at his house again the night before.

“Can we go for a walk?” Sarah asked as soon as she saw it was Laura at her door. “I have my shoes on.”

“Of course.” Laura walked into the apartment, her gaze falling instantly to the photograph of young Joe Tolley on the end table. He looked different to her this morning. He wore a cockeyed grin and there was a sparkle in his eye. She could imagine him plotting that dangerous charade at Saint Margaret’s.

“Did you enjoy the movie?” Laura asked.

“Movie?” Sarah looked at her blankly.

“The movie I left in your VCR yesterday.”

“Oh.” Sarah glanced at the VCR. “I don’t think I watched it. I was thinking about Joe all day.”

Laura extracted the movie from the machine and left it next to her purse on the kitchenette counter. She opened the apartment door for Sarah, and they walked into the hall.

“You told me some disturbing things about Joe,” she said, wondering if it was cruel to probe Sarah’s memory further.

Sarah only nodded.

“And you said you never saw him again. Was that right?”

Sarah let out a sigh. “Joseph Tolley was a kind, lovable, smart and adventurous man,” she said. “But in the end, he was a fool.”

Sarah, 1959

Minutes after learning about Joe’s fate from Dr. Palmiento, Sarah picked up Janie at Mrs. Gale’s. Her mind was reeling, and her stomach was still in turmoil from her bout of sickness that morning. She did not know what to do. She went through the motions of feeding Janie, playing with her a bit, tucking her into bed. Then she sat in her living room, staring out the window at the streetlight.

Joe was gone—the Joe she had known, at any rate. The thought of that sharp mind and easygoing manner being quelled forever by such barbaric surgery was simply incomprehensible to her. Yet she had seen Dr. Palmiento perform surgery on other patients who did not seem to merit it. And he had probably figured out what Joe was up to. What better way to prevent Joe’s report from ever seeing the light of day than to destroy his mind?

Yet
her
mind was still clear, and she knew what Joe had learned. Palmiento was experimenting on his patients, he’d said. Something about mind control. Brainwashing. She would go to the authorities with what she knew. The police or the FBI. First thing in the morning, though, she would call the board of psychiatry again and tell them what had happened to Joe. Palmiento needed to be punished for what he’d done.

She cried in bed the entire night, as if trying to get the tears
out of the way. Once she started her fight, there would be no room for them.

In the morning, she reached the president of the board. This time she identified herself. As she began reciting what had happened, he interrupted her.

“I can’t understand a word you’re saying,” he said.

In spite of all the weeping she’d done overnight, she was still crying as she spoke. Crying and raising her voice. She knew she must sound like a madwoman.

“I was a nurse at Saint Margaret’s Psychiatric Hospital,” she said, getting her emotions under control. “I thought some strange things were going on there, so I reported them to you…to the board.”

“What sort of ‘strange things’?” he asked.

“Cruel and inhumane experiments,” she said. “Then my husband, who is a reporter for the
Washington Post
, checked himself in as a patient so that he could find out what was really going on there. When they—Dr. Palmiento and his intern, I don’t even know his real last name—when they found out what my husband was up to, they lobotomized him. And they won’t tell me where he is.”

The president of the board did not respond right away. “This sounds rather far-fetched,” he said finally.

“Please believe me! Send someone to look at his chart. Only it’s not under his real name. It’s under the name Frederick Hamilton.”

“Peter Palmiento is one of the top psychiatrists in the country,” the man said.

“I’m aware of his reputation, but maybe he doesn’t deserve it,” Sarah countered. “Do you have a record of the last report I made?”

“I’ll check on it. If you called, I’m sure we have it.”

“I made it anonymously. And you never
did
anything about it. My husband’s not the only one who’s suffered there.”

“All right, Mrs. Tolley. I’m having a hard time accepting what you’re telling me, but I’ll look into it personally. Okay?”

“When? They won’t let me see him. I want to see him.”

“I’ll call Pete today,” he said.

Pete
. As though he and Palmiento were old buddies.

She got off the phone and sat curled up in one corner of the sofa, staring into space. It seemed impossible that they would have moved Joe so quickly after surgery. Maybe they’d only told her they’d moved him and he was still there. She called Colleen at the hospital and began telling her what had happened, but Colleen interrupted her.

“I know,” she said. “They found out he was snooping into their experiments and they lobotomized him. I’m so, so sorry, Sarah.”

Hearing the words from Colleen’s mouth made them horribly real.

“Do you know where they took him?” she asked.

“I looked at his chart,” Colleen said. “It doesn’t say.”

“I can’t believe they moved him that quickly. Do you think he might still be there? Would you check, Colleen? Could you check any room where they might have put him for postsurgical care?”

Colleen hesitated. “Gilbert called me into his office this morning,” she said. “He told me about you being fired and said I should…that I shouldn’t have any contact with you.”

“Why?”

“He said if I wanted to keep my job, I should avoid you.”

“Colleen,
please
. Please look for Joe. No one needs to know what you’re doing.” That Colleen would put Gilbert’s demand ahead of their friendship stung her.

“All right.” Colleen sounded reluctant. “I’ll check the other wards on my break.”

The day was very long. Sarah took Janie for two walks in her stroller, and in between the walks, she held the little girl on her lap until Janie whimpered to be set free. She nearly forgot to feed her. Food was the last thing on her mind.

Colleen called that evening to tell Sarah that she’d checked the hospital from top to bottom. Joe was not there.

“I remembered that an ambulance was at the hospital yesterday afternoon,” Colleen said. “I didn’t make the connection at the time, but they were probably transporting him.”

Or maybe Joe had died during the surgery, Sarah thought with horror. It happened. She’d never seen a patient die during a lobotomy, but she’d heard plenty of stories. Perhaps they had made certain that Joe died. That’s why they wouldn’t tell her where he had been taken.

She was already up and sitting in the living room, planning her next move, when the phone rang early the following morning. It was Dr. Palmiento’s secretary, asking her to come to the hospital immediately for a meeting with him.

She dressed quickly, dropped Janie off with Mrs. Gale and drove to Saint Margaret’s.

Both Palmiento and Gilbert were in the director’s office. They stood as she entered, but she had no time for such niceties.

“I demand to know where Joe is,” she said. “Or did you kill him during surgery?”

“Sit down, please,” said Dr. P.

“Just tell me—”

“Sit down, dear,” he said, more firmly this time, and she took a seat. Why did she allow this man to have such power over her?

Palmiento sat down again, hands folded on top of his desk. “I had a meeting with the president of the psychiatric board yesterday,” he said pleasantly, though his sharp eyes clashed with the tone of his voice. “We met on the golf course, so I had a good long time to explain the entire situation to him. I told him all about your husband’s psychiatric illness. And about your need to deny it.”

“He did not have a psychiatric illness.” The words came out in a growl. She felt like a wild animal, ferocious and ready to defend her family.

Gilbert sat in the chair next to hers. “This must be very difficult for you,” he said.

His voice was so kind that, despite her fury, she was tempted to rest her head on his shoulder. But he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

“You must feel terribly betrayed by Mr. Tolley,” he said.

“By
Joe?
”

“Yes. To your face, he pretended everything was all right. To us, when you weren’t around, he told us how miserable he was in his life. He’d even considered suicide. The thought tormented him.”

“That wasn’t Joe speaking. That was Frederick Hamilton. Complete fiction!”

Gilbert gave her a rueful smile. “It wasn’t fiction,” he said. “They were Joe’s true feelings. His checking himself into the hospital as a supposed scheme was actually his cry for help, can you see that?”

“No!” She started to stand, but Gilbert stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “Joe loved me,” she said. “He loved Janie, our little girl. He wouldn’t want to—”

“We have documentation in his record of his deteriorating
condition,” Dr. P. interrupted her. “I offered to show that material to Cliff, but he said it wasn’t necessary.”

Sarah could imagine that conversation.
She’s in denial, she’s crazy, she’s angry about being fired
.

“All right,” she said, raising her hands in surrender. “I give up. Just tell me where Joe is, and I’ll—”

“Cliff agreed with me that, at this point in time, it would be better for you not to see him,” Dr. P. said. “You are far too fragile and—”

“God damn it!” She stood up, too quickly for Gilbert to stop her this time. “I am not
fragile
. I am not crazy.”

Gilbert reached a hand toward her. “Sit down again, Mrs. Tolley.” He looked at Dr. Palmiento and received a nod. “We have something very, very important to discuss with you.”

The somber tone of his voice quieted her instantly, and she lowered herself back into her chair. The nausea from the day before toyed with her again, and she steeled herself against it. She would not get sick here.

Gilbert rolled his chair in front of hers until he and Sarah sat face-to-face. “Dr. Palmiento and I have discussed this matter at great length, and we’ve decided it’s necessary to take you into our confidence. We are fully aware that you’ve been communicating with the board of psychiatry. We knew that even before yesterday.”

“How did you—”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “What matters is that you tell no one—
no one
—anything you know about the techniques being used here at Saint Margaret’s. It’s a matter of national security, Mrs. Tolley.”

“I don’t understand.”

Gilbert leaned forward in his seat, and she knew the concern in his eyes was genuine. “The Soviets and the Chinese are far
ahead of the United States in the development of mind control techniques,” he said. “Some disturbing things have happened that you may not know about. For example, during the war in Korea, over seventy percent of the American prisoners of war being held in China signed petitions calling for an end to the American war effort, and some of them made false confessions. The frightening thing is, they stuck to those confessions even when they were finally safe at home. They were brainwashed, Sarah. Don’t you think that’s alarming? That other countries, that our
enemies
, can brainwash our men and we don’t have a clue how they’re doing it? It’s up to Dr. Palmiento and a handful of other…
pioneers
…to perfect mind control methods for our use. Our enemies have the upper hand. We have to get it back.”

Sarah was overwhelmed, by both his words and his zeal. “But…what do you mean by mind control techniques, exactly?” she asked. “Psychic driving? The shock treatments? The isolation room?”

“All of that is being researched,” Gilbert said. “Along with the use of certain drugs.”

“LSD.”

“Yes, among others.” Gilbert sat back in his chair with a sigh. “I’m telling you a great deal, Sarah. Perhaps too much for your own good. But Dr. Palmiento and I felt you deserved to know.”

“Who has authorized these…experiments?” she asked.

“The United States government,” Gilbert said. “As a matter of fact, if you were to go to the FBI or the CIA with what you’ve witnessed here, you’d only be telling them something they already know—in fact, something they’re financing.”

“Financing!”

“Yes, but that fact
must
stay in this room, Sarah,” Gilbert said.
“Only Dr. P. and myself, and now you, are aware of the source of our funding.”

“It’s unconscionable, though,” Sarah said. “You’re experimenting on unwitting patients.”