Look Closely (24 page)

I read it over once more. Strange how short it was and how abruptly Manning had decided to believe my father. It also seemed peculiar that he would refer to suffering on the part of the Sutters or the community. Wasn’t it the job of the police to find who had caused the pain, not just to sweep a case under the rug so it couldn’t show its ugliness anymore? Maybe I was expecting too much. When I had read police reports in the past, they were usual y authored by the Manhattan authorities who couldn’t give a damn how much suffering their investigations caused. But Woodland Dunes was a smal community after al . Maybe things played out differently in such places. Stil , the thought that someone may have hurt my mother—whether my father, my brother or someone else—and gone unpunished, angered me. It must have angered whoever wrote that letter to me, too.

I read again the summary of my father’s last interrogation, trying to discern any other information that could have led to Manning’s change of mind. After al , why should he believe my father’s version of Leah fal ing down the stairs when he supposedly wasn’t there that night? I was about to put the summary back in the stack, when two smal typed annotations at the bottom caught my eye:

D: 6/3/82. T:6/3/82.

I knew from reviewing documents at work that this meant the interview was both dictated and typedonJune3,1982,threedaysafterittookplace.

I reviewed the dates of the other interviews. Without fail, Manning had dictated every summary on the day the interview was conducted. On a few occasions, the summary was actual y typed a day or two later, but Manning, himself, had performed his dictation with immediacy. So why had it taken him three days to dictate Wil iam Sutter’s last interview?

It was possible that Manning had simply come to believe my father and had, therefore, lost interest in the case. He might have been put on some other project. Or maybe he’d made up his mind, closed the file, and then remembered to go back and document his thought process. But real y, there wasn’t much there in terms of his thoughts. Just a short summary of an interview and a conclusion that the case would be closed.

I moved back to his handwritten notes to see if there was anything else. After the note about my father’s second interview on May 31, Manning hadn’t made any notes at al for two days.

This was also odd, since he’d made numerous comments every day since the death. There was only one left after my father’s last interview. It said simply,
Death Accidental. Case closed.

Had

I

been

off

base

in

looking

for

some

other

reason

for

my

mother’s

death?

After

reading

the

records,Ididn’tthinkso.Thisquicklabelingofthe

deathas“accidental”seemedabrupt,dubious.And my brother and sister had seemingly disappeared soon after I’d received the anonymous letter. Matt had believed that Caroline’s disappearance was somehow connected to a cal from our father.

Which reminded me, I’d promised Matt I would contact him after I had spoken to my dad, and yet I’d been putting it off, not wanting to admit that I’d realized my father was lying. I gathered the police records and left the newspaper on the table for the next person. Heading back to my apartment, I realized that Matt’s wasn’t the only phone cal I needed to make. I had the number for Crestwood Home, as wel .

I cal ed Crestwood Home, tel ing the receptionist I was looking for information about my sister, Caroline Sutter. But I didn’t expect to learn anything that day. It was Sunday, after al . Yet within twenty minutes, I received a return phone cal .

“Dr. Adler wil see you today,” the woman said, “this afternoon in fact, if you can make the trip to

Connecticut.”

“Dr. Adler?” I asked.

“Yes, he’l speak with you about your sister. Can you get here today?”

“Today,” I repeated, not sure whether to be thril ed or wary. Final y, I recovered. I got directions and grabbed my car keys.

It took me no time to drive to Hol y Knol s, Connecticut. Fol owing the directions I received, I turned off the highway and glanced at my odometer. Thirty miles since I had left Manhattan. It would have been sixty or so miles from Long Island, which meant that during part of her stay at Crestwood Home, Caroline had been only sixty miles from where my father and I had lived in Manhasset. I’d never had any concept of what had happened to Caroline after we’d left Woodland Dunes, but my father had known. That was clear now. He would have paid Caroline’s bil s, probably spoken to Caroline’s doctor. Had he visited her, leaving me at home with one of the nannies? Why had he kept Caroline away?

I slowed the car and turned right by a smal , tasteful sign that read Crestwood Home. I pul ed into the parking lot and turned off the ignition.

Crestwood was a Victorian home made of large brown stones, with two turrets on either side like mountain peaks. On the vivid green front lawn, a few men played croquet, while a woman sat in a chair watching them, her hands flat on her knees. If I hadn’t known better, I might have thought it was a private club.

I got out of the car and walked the pebbled path to the front doors. Inside, the place was like a hotel lobby, decorated with soothing Monetesque oil paintings and thick gray carpeting, which blocked out any sound. I gave the receptionist my name and took a seat in an upholstered, high-backed chair.

After a minute, the woman rose from her seat andcal edtome,“Dr.Adlerwil seeyounow.Third door on your right.” She pointed down the center hal way that led away from the reception area.

My footsteps fel silent on the carpeting. I pricked up my ears, listening for any noises. I wasn’t sure what I expected to hear. Screams or cries maybe? Laughter or discussion?

According to their Web site, Crestwood Home usual y housed a hundred residents. But only an unnatural quiet rang back. I stopped and knocked when I reached the third door, which was closed and unmarked.

“Come in,” I heard.

Dr. Adler’s large office was furnished with overstuffed leather couches with worn, flannel blankets tossed over them. A wood desk with numerous nicks and scratches sat at the far end of the room.

Above it, prints with bleak landscapes hung on the wal . If the rest of the home seemed like an upscale hotel or a club, Dr. Adler’s office appeared more like a lodge in Colorado.

A man stood from behind the desk, buttoning his tan jacket. I had expected a bookish, older man in a white lab coat, but Dr. Adler was tal and lean, his high cheekbones and pointed chin giving his face an elfin appearance. His brown hair was beginning to gray at the temples, and I guessed that he was in his late forties.

“Miss Sutter.” He moved around the desk and clasped my hand. “I’m Dr. Adler. It’s a pleasure.”

“You, too. I real y appreciate your seeing me on such short notice.”

“Of course. This is one of my working weekends, so I was here when you cal ed.” He raised a hand and gestured toward the couch along the far wal . “Would you like to lie down?”

I looked at the couch and back to his face again. “I don’t think that’s…I’m not here for…”

He gave me another half smile. “Just a little psychiatric joke.”

“Oh.” I laughed a little then, startled by the attempt at humor.

“Please,” he said, this time pointing to one of the leather chairs in front of his desk.

I sank into it, the soft chair engulfing me until I felt ten inches lower than Dr. Adler, who was now back behind his desk. I shifted, trying to position myself higher, wondering if he had bought the chairs like that on purpose.

“Dr. Adler,” I said, scooting forward. “I’m here to talk about my sister, Caroline Sutter.”

He gave a slight bow of his head. “My assistant mentioned that, and that’s why I agreed to see you today. The Portland police have contacted me, as wel , so I know that Caroline is missing.”

“Real y?” I remembered what Matt had said about the police being relatively unhelpful.

“Yes. I’m very concerned about her, as I’m sure you are, but I wanted to explain to you in person that, without Caroline’s express permission, I can’t divulge anything about her or her care to you.”

“And why is that?” Jesus. He had gotten me al the way out here, and he wasn’t going to give me anything?

“Because of physician/patient privilege. Are you familiar with what that means?” His voice held a trace of condescension.

“Yes, I’m an attorney. I know what the physician/patient privilege is.”

Dr. Adler spread his hands wide as if to show the futility of my being there.

“Wel ,” I said, “I’m sure you know the cases which say that a physician who fears his patient might harm themselves or others can break the privilege for the safety of the patient and the other people.”

Dr.Adlerplacedhiselbowsonhisdesk,forming a steeple with his fingers and leaning his chin on them.“Ms.Sutter,IcaredaboutCarolineverymuch, and I was extremely proud of her progress.

I stil worry about her from time to time, but I keep in loose contact with her, and the letters I’ve received indicate nothing like what you’re suggesting.”

“When did you last hear from her?”

Dr. Adler pul ed open a lower desk drawer that I couldn’t see. He turned his body and flipped through files. He lifted a sheet, glanced at it, then returned it to the drawer. “Six months ago.”

“Before she disappeared.”

“That’s correct.”

“Was she ever suicidal?”

“I can’t tel you that,” he said.

I tried not to show my frustration. Why was I here if he wasn’t prepared to tel me something? I decided to try again.

“Then just think the answer to yourself,” I said. “Ask yourself, was Caroline suicidal? Does the fact that she disappeared in the middle of a wedding and left a note for her husband tel ing him that she needed time away indicate that she might have had some kind of relapse? Does the fact that she is stil missing mean that she might have harmed herself or be thinking about doing so?”

My voice raised slightly, despite my best efforts to remain calm. I didn’t want to anger Dr. Adler, but the more I talked, thinking about my sister out there somewhere, alone, when she had already spent so much of her life by herself, had given me real worry. This wasn’t just about me anymore and satisfying my need to discover what had happened to my mother. This had to be about Caroline and Dan, too.

The office was silent for a long time. Dr. Adler’s eyes narrowed as if he was going through a mental exercise. I tried to sit perfectly stil , tried not to tap a foot or even blink my eyes.

Final y he said, “Yes. It’s possible that Caroline may try to hurt herself.”

“Then you can break the privilege. You can help me to help her.”

Silence again. And he nodded.

Dr. Adler had me wait in his office while he left the room to gather Caroline’s files, and then again he left me waiting while he sat at his desk and reviewed them. It seemed an interminably long time.

I crossed and recrossed my legs, struggling to stay upright in the cushy chair, holding in an impatient sigh. It occurred to me that if the Portland police had contacted Dr. Adler, then the police must have learned about the clinic from Matt, which meant that Caroline had told him about her stay here. The thought that they were so close, that Caroline had someone in her life she could talk openly with, comforted me.

At last, Dr. Adler took his chair again and looked at me. “First, I should start by tel ing you that I was a psychiatric resident when Caroline was first admitted here. She was technical y under the care of Dr. Sammeth, who is no longer with us, but because of the nature of my residency, I was the physician who saw Caroline most often.”

I nodded, eager to get straight to the point. “And why was she admitted to begin with?”

“Caroline was admitted to Crestwood fol owing a suicide attempt.”

“Oh,” I said, the sound slipping out of my mouth before I realized it. I had taken a stab in the dark when I asked Dr. Adler if Caroline had been suicidal, thinking that it might get him to help me, but hearing that she had actual y tried to take her own life sent a surge of sadness through my body. It threatened to exhaust me.

Dr. Adler continued in a flat voice. “She used a kitchen knife to slit her wrists on the day she was supposed to graduate from high school. A place cal ed…” Dr. Adler flipped through some notes.

“Brighton Academy,” I said, my voice flat.

He gave me a glance, then returned his eyes to the file. “That’s right. When we did an initial intake exam we found that she had been engaged in self-mutilation for a period of approximately five years.”

“Self-mutilation,” I repeated, finding my throat suddenly dry. “Can you tel me what that means?”

Dr.Adlerputthefilefolderdownonhisdesk.“It’s just what it sounds like, hurting one’s self, usual y bycuttingorslicingtheskin,sometimesburning,in order to relieve one’s feelings. It’s often associated with unexpressed and unresolved loss or anger.”

“But if she’d been doing this—this mutilation— for five years, wouldn’t someone have noticed?”
Please,
I thought,
tell me someone noticed.

Dr. Adler shook his head no. “It’s quite easy to hide, real y. In Caroline’s case, she used safety pins, sometimes broken glass, but she took extreme care to ensure that no one could see the wounds. She cut herself in places like her armpits, inner thighs, behind her knees, that kind of thing.”

Dr. Adler paused, as if giving me space to ask a question, but I was momentarily overwhelmed. Final y, I found my voice. “Why? Why did she do that?”

“As I said, this type of behavior is often associated with anger and loss. In Caroline’s case, it appeared to be related to a few things. One was the loss of your mother. Another was a deep anger toward your father. Instead of expressing these emotions outwardly, she would harm herself in order to achieve some kind of relief.”

“And did she talk about why she was so angry with our father?”