Night Vision (22 page)

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Authors: Ellen Hart

BOOK: Night Vision
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“You know?”
repeated David, annoyed that they seemed to be speaking in code.
“To the future,” said Joanna, clicking her glass to Freddy's, then turning to David.
“The future,” David repeated in a monotone. There was no way he could match their enthusiasm, fearing, as he still did, that he might not have one.
T
he following morning, Jane found Cordelia sitting at the kitchen table, elbows splayed, head bowed, staring at an uneaten Toaster Strudel cooling on a plate in front of her. When Jane pulled back a chair and sat down, Cordelia didn't even look up. All of her usual effervescent irascibility had been replaced by a look of deep gloom. The coffee wasn't even on. Nor were any lights.
“You're up early,” said Jane.
Cordelia grunted.
“You miss Hattie.”
Another grunt.
“She'll be back tonight, kiddo. And then you'll feel better.”
Cordelia lifted her head and eyed Jane's face. “You're still a mess. You might try using some stage makeup.”
“I'll think about it.”
“Take some advice from a person who knows. Horses and humans don't mix.”
“Kenzie would disagree with you.”
“Maybe she's not human.”
“On that one, I beg to differ.”
Cordelia eyed her a moment more. “You're happy with her, aren't you.”
“More than I ever thought possible.”
“You're happy and I'm miserable. Pardon my lack of graciousness, but I liked it better when I was happy and you were miserable.”
Jane laughed. “You'll get this straightened out with Octavia. She's probably just doing the mommy thing to impress her new boyfriend. They'll jet off to somewhere
real
sooner or later.”
“You got that right. In Octavia's lexicon of happening places, Minnesota wouldn't even make the top one thousand. For her, visiting the Twin Cities is probably like spending a few days in a village in Tibet.”
“She
is
kind of a snob.”
“Don't hold your punches on my account.” Pushing the Toaster Strudel away, she added, “Don't suppose you'd like to watch
SpongeBob SquarePants
with me. Then we could get out the finger paints afterward and smoosh to our heart's content.”
“Boy, you really do miss her. Where's Cecily?”
“With Octavia. Oh, come on, Jane. You don't actually think she'd take Hattie without someone to hand her off to when she feels a slight headache coming on.”
Jane groaned. Maybe the idea of having a baby had seemed like a good idea to Octavia once upon a time, but the reality of a child hadn't exactly lit her lamp. “Look, I'm not supposed to tell this to Joanna, but I don't think it's a problem if I tell you, as long as you keep your mouth shut. I spoke to Nolan last night. The police finally got a warrant to dredge Whitefish Lake.”
“When?” said Cordelia.
“Today. It's probably already begun. I could be wrong, but I think this may be a very dangerous period for Joanna. She needs to stay in the building, with security men guarding the entrances.”
“Believe me, after what happened on Sunday, she's not going anywhere.”
“The dredging will be done in full view of everyone who lives on the lake. That means if Luberman dumped a body there, the sight of
the search could push him over the edge. In that frame of mind, who knows what he could do.”
Cordelia picked up the Toaster Strudel, licked off some of the frosting. “Roger,” she said, getting into the mood.
“On the other hand, Luberman might have nothing to fear if he buried the body in the woods or dumped it down a well. We'll just have to wait to find out.” Jane checked her watch, then rose from the table. “Mouse,” she called, clapping her hands. “Come here, boy.” She pulled his leash out of her back pocket.
“Where are you going?” demanded Cordelia.
“I've got an appointment with my therapist this morning.”
One of Cordelia's eyebrows arched upward.
“There's nothing wrong, you can retract your eyeballs. Just a standard sixty-thousand-mile checkup.” That wasn't exactly true. Jane regretted lying to Cordelia, but David didn't want anyone to know about his problems.
“When will you be back?”
“No idea. But call me if you hear from Octavia.”
Cordelia resumed her full-out glum position.
“It's going to work out. You'll see.”
“Right.”
“Call your lawyer. You might have some rights you don't know about.”
“Oh, sure. I have a bunch of them. Like I have the right to remain silent. Anything I say may be used against me in a court of law. I have the right to an attorney. If I can't afford one—”
“That's only if you commit a crime.”
“Exactly.”
“Go watch
SpongeBob
.”
“Good idea.”
 
Jane was sitting in her therapist's waiting room, reading the latest copy of
Newsweek,
when David walked in. She was glad for the interruption. If she read much more about the president and his war in Iraq, she'd need to be put on massive doses of antidepressants. Maybe
that's why her therapist's waiting room was stocked with newsmagazines. She was drumming up business.
David looked as scared as she'd ever seen him. He was a few minutes early, which was good. Jane wanted a chance to talk to him before they were ushered into the doctor's office.
David winced when he looked at her face. “How are the bruises?”
“Healing.”
“Do they hurt?”
“Not much.”
Hesitantly, he sat down next to her. He had on a pair of dress slacks and a black silk shirt. He looked great.
“You smell good.”
“I'm a gay man. We're supposed to smell good.”
That brought a smile. “Are you ready?”
“What did you tell her?”
“What you told Kenzie and me up in the hayloft.”
“Did you mention—” He nodded to her face.
“No. I thought I'd let you do that, if you want to.”
“Ohmigod,” he said, pressing the flats of his hands over his eyes.
“What if she says I belong in a looney bin?”
“David, you might try approaching this with a little more—”
“What?”
“Well, respect, for starters. Using a label like ‘looney' isn't particularly useful.”
“Okay,” he said, one leg bouncing nervously. “I've been officially smacked.”
She gave him a frustrated stare.
“Don't be upset with me, Janey. This is hard.”
“I know. I'm here for you. Anything I can do, I will.”
“Anything?” Using a TV announcer voice, he said, “The role of David Carlson is now being played by Jane Lawless.”
“I would if I could.”
“I wouldn't wish my life on anyone,” he mumbled, looking away. The door to the office opened and Dr. Janice Dowd stepped out. She examined the contents of a folder for a few seconds, then looked
up. “Jane?” she said, smiling. “Good to see you again. David? You can both come in now.”
They rose in unison and followed her inside.
Dr. Dowd was in her late fifties, a round, motherly looking woman. She was a licensed psychologist with a degree from Brown University. She'd been a practicing therapist for more than thirty years. Her hair had been completely gray when Jane first met her, but somewhere along the line, she'd dyed it back to a shade closer to her original brown.
As the doctor sat down behind her desk, she nodded to Jane's face. “Run into a door?”
“Long story.”
“No doubt.” She stared at the bruises a moment more, then turned to David. “We're here to talk about you today, Mr. Carlson. May I call you David?”
“Please.”
She peered over her glasses, giving him an appraising look. “As you probably know, Jane and I talked at some length last night about your problems, but I'd like you to tell me, in your own words, what you think is happening in your life.”
He cleared his throat, looked down, then up, then back down again. For the next ten minutes, he covered the same ground he had with Jane and Kenzie, though in much greater detail.
Dowd sat back and listened. When David slowed his story and finally stopped, she asked him if there was anything else he felt might be important for her to know.
He shrugged, said there wasn't.
“Do you drink?”
“Yes.”
“Much?”
“More than I should.”
“Every day?”
“Lately, yeah.”
She made a couple of notes. “Drugs?”
“Uppers, when I can get them, to stay awake.”
“Anything else?”
“I've smoked a little pot, but not recently.”
“Cocaine?”
“No.”
“Meth?”
“I'm not an idiot.”
Her lips turned up in a slight smile. “That's good,” she said, leaning forward, giving herself a moment to assemble her thoughts. “After I talked to Jane last night, I did a little research. Nothing you've told me today changes my initial reaction. I called a friend of mine at the University of Minnesota this morning. My recommendation is that you see him. Have you ever heard of parasomnia?”
David shook his head.
She glanced down at the folder in front of her. “It's a sleep-related behavioral disorder. I made a few notes because, frankly, this isn't something I'm qualified to deal with. However, I wanted to be able to give you some information.”
“Great,” said David, shifting in his seat.
“Parasomnias—and there are lots of different manifestations, with more being discovered all the time—are disorders that intrude into the sleep process and cause disruptive sleep-related events. Like sleepwalking or talking in your sleep. Those are two that we hear about a lot. Most of these disorders are infrequent and mild. What you have, I'm afraid, is neither.”
“Tell me about it,” said David under his breath.
“I won't get into a lot of detail here because it's not necessary, but the research that's been done tells us that parasomnias are much more common than we ever thought and often have serious consequences.”
“What are some examples?” asked Jane.
“Well, for instance, some people, like David, have been known to eat while asleep. That's classified as an eating disorder. Restless leg syndrome and night terrors are two more. If the individual gets out of bed and begins to walk around, sometimes this activity can become frenzied or aggressive. That's another level. People have wielded knives or guns while asleep, which, as you might expect, can cause serious
problems within the family. In any event, suppression of the person's normal judgment—leaping out a bedroom window, wandering around outside in the dark—is always part of it. In adults, the duration of the episodes can vary widely. Sometimes, people with parasomnias report that it feels as if they're living inside a dream, acting out some sort of terrifying scenario, though asleep. Sometimes they remember these dreams, sometimes they don't. There's even a sleep disorder that recently made the news, one that had to do with sexual abuse. A man was acquitted of molesting his daughter because it was determined that he was asleep at the time.”
“Bizarre,” said Jane. “And horrifying.”
“It is indeed. I have my own personal doubts about that one, although I have to admit, knowing what we now know about sleep disorders, that it is possible. Parasomnias are classified according to whether the symptoms are primary phenomena of the sleep state itself, or secondary to it, such as some underlying medical or psychiatric disorder.”
David closed his eyes, gripped the arms of his chair. “So I
could
still be crazy.”
Dowd glanced at Jane, then back at David. “Crazy isn't a very helpful term.”
“Right,” said David. “Sorry.”
“There are too many variables for me to tell you what's actually going on. You need to be evaluated by a specialist.”
David nodded, crossed his legs and then uncrossed them. “Does it hurt?”
She smiled. “No. It usually begins with an interview, which covers such things as medical history, sleep-wake patterns, psychiatric history, alcohol and drug use history, family history, and issues of abuse. Then there will be some testing—psychiatric and neurologic examinations. And you'll do an overnight where you'll be monitored.”

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