Pam (8 page)

It would be hard put to find a therapist or
psychiatrist
who didn’t have
a therapist
or
p
s
y
ch
iatrist
of
his
own. It just goes with the
territory
. The stress of the job
requires
an understanding ear.

James
Hathaway
was my understanding ear and had been so since my days at State.

I called James for an emergency ‘session’ as soon as Pam left my office.

I was shaken. Shaken because all that I thought, all that I believed was out the
window
…
sort of,
in
regards
to
Pam
,
that was.

But I wasn’t there to see him or have a consult about
Pam;
it was about me and my handling of things.

He agreed to the emergency session
,
and since we had a sort of friend
ly
bond, we sat outside a nice little coffee shop. The side patio table afforded us privacy.

“Dez, what is going on?”
He asked in that
‘
friend meets father
’
way.

I wouldn’t tell him details or too much
;
there were times I just needed to talk about my feelings
,
and after my session with Pam, I had to talk about those feelings.

James had known me for very long time. Most of us in the field
have
OCD or
are
compulsive about
some
thing. I was. My disorder and
the
eventual remission of it led me to the field of
psychiatry
;
if someone helped me, then I needed to help someone else.

He asked
if
I was feeling a ‘wave’ or
‘craving’
;
it was
how
we liked to refer to my weak times.
I told him
no
;
he was glad to hear that,
until I said,
not yet.

“Dez, we can keep this in check, can’t we?”

And I had, once again, after seeing James, years earlier.

See, the truth is, I wasn’t formally relieved of duties at State
.
James
,
who was the senior Stat
e
doctor
,
asked me to le
ave and get treatment. If I did
and took a leave of
absence
, he would not tell the board.

He warned me several times at State to put down Pam’s folder, but that wasn’t really what made him have the talk with me.

One night, while doing a sleep study on a pati
ent, James made a surprise
appearance
and caught me … servicing myself while watching
the
patient sleep.

A
P
ee
-w
ee Herman incident.

I was embarrassed but I
confessed
that I had a problem. I was contro
l
l
ed
by urges I didn’t want to have.

I called them waves.

I didn’t wake up wanting to have sex
;
of
ten times, I didn’t think of it
until something or someone caused a ‘wave’. Once I was hit with the wave, I felt insatiable.

The problem sta
r
ted when I was sixteen years old, but back
then
I
was more out of control. I had sex with anyone when those waves hit. I mean anyone.

A person who isn’t a sexual addict hasn’t a clue how the waves take over your every though
;
you are consumed with the desire to have sex. Fantasies run rampant
,
and the urges can drive you crazy.

Being the
good
C
atholic boy that I was, I confessed to a priest. He actually understood it and didn’t condemn me. He found me help.

I was medicated for years
and went on to live normally
u
ntil I felt I could stop the medication.

When I did, it barreled back
,
and I found my trigger lay with the forbidden.

I’m talking odd forbidden
,
n
ot illegal.
Odd.
Like sleeping woman, sad wom
en, any woman and sometimes men
that I found helpless or dangerous. The
fouler
a
prostitute
the harder the
e
rection.

Unfortunately
, in my field, I ran across many of these people.

I never had sex with a patient, nor would I. Not in a conventional way. But in my fantasies they invited me to their homes, welcomed me into their bed
s
or performed
f
ella
tio
on me before they left my office
after
a session.

Whenever
the waves hit me and became frequent, I’
d go back on medication, wea
n off
,
and be good for while.

It had been a while since a ‘wave’ had hit me.
James congratulated me on that.

Over that coffee, I told him about the new patient and how I felt a sadness for her, a connection to her and wanted to hear more of her story.

“You have an obsessive personality. You remember how you got over that Perkins case.”

I nodded. I also didn’t tell him I ended up with that case, because I was certain he would try to convince me to give it to someone else.

“So I don’t understand why you needed to see me,” he said. “Is it just
that
you fe
e
l compulsive about this patient
?
”

“I think about her case all the time. It’s not interfering in my other cases.”

“Not yet?”

“I hope not.”

“Just call me. I think you’re good. Maybe it’s just an interesting patient.”

“That she is.” I smiled.

James asked a lot of questions, all the right ones. I felt better after I met with him and less guilty for my
obsession. I felt like a flood
gate open
ed
and I could
freely
schedule to see her more.

She needed
it
and
,
oddly enough, so did I.

Hartford was
north of Willow Creek
,
and my current home was south of my old town. But I felt compelled to drive to Hartford.

My intention was to stop at
the
Willow Creek nursing home and visit my father, sneak in and out of town before Pam arrived in her well media noted quest for the truth. But I passed the exit and kept going.

My rash of memories of Marion Blake was the
catapult
for my visit.

I remembered very well where that
a
uto
b
ody shop was
,
and I found it with ease. It was no longer a car shop, but a Vito
Electronic
store.
Televisions
graced the windows
,
and
the
exterior of the apartment upstairs had received a facelift of new siding. On the window of the apartment was a for rent sign. I
thought
about going up there and looking at the
apartment
, but I didn’t know if I could handle it.

It was like visiting the
scene
of a crime. A crime I didn’t commit.

I knew Pam had a dark side, but that side of her only came out
to
protect what was hers. That’s was one of the reasons I had a hard time
believing
before
the
trial that she would
hurt
her children.

They were hers.

But what it boiled down to wasn’
t the kids
;
they were pawns
and tools in her keeping Richie.

In reflection, everything was in protection of Richie. It was a fatal attraction. She did whatever she could to hold on to him as tight
ly
as she
could
.
Having one child after another
.
… that was probably why Richie was so wayward.
Her grip was so tight
that
he reached for freedom.

No, that couldn’t have been all
of
it. Richie was wayward even in school.

He started school late so he matured earlier than most. When a lot of girls dismissed him for his awkwardness, Pam didn’t. She got him.

But then he crav
ed attention and ran with it.

He loved attention, which was also one of the reasons I thought Richie had killed his kids.

He was tired of being tied down, he wanted to move on, Pam was having another child.

It made perfect sense
.
No one even looked at him as a suspect. No one. Until that day in the trial, I doubted his innocence. Then I heard his testimony. Richie wasn’t an actor. He couldn’t lie his way out of an affair when he as busted. His testimony was not a lie.

But was it really all true?

Richie took something to his grave about that
day;
we’ll never know what that was. I feel that because that son, that child born of a madwoman, believes her innocence.

All those years he spent with his father
,
and not once did Richie tarnish her memory. Not once did he tell Justin that his mother was a maniac and killed his siblings.

Why?

The events of that fateful day had c
hanged and disturbed me so much
that I buried all reason about
it
with the verdict.

Standing outside that apartment, I realized that I was just as guilty as anyone else because I dismissed, ignored
,
and even covered
up
events that had occurred. Not just Marion Blake, but a lot of other things that could have been signs and warnings leading up to that tragic birthday.

Too self
-
absorbed to care back then, I vowed not to make the same mistake.

Because it dawned on me right there and then as I looked at
the televisions in Vito’s store
that there was another child’s life at stake.

But did I really care enough, or want to emerge from my protective shadows and intervene?

In my day, in my time, before I was locked away, when you needed to find
something
out
or
do some
research, you went to the library.

It
still held true in a sense,
only
in
a new way
;
in 2004
,
research
was done
a heck of a lot different
ly
.

Dr.
Andrews was set to meet Justin
to see if the boy’s intentions were
true
,
and if
so
,
he’d arrange a meeting with us.

I liked Dr. Andrews; there was a connection between the two of us that I couldn’t put my finger on it.
As if we knew each other before that first office visit or we had some sort of kinship connection.
Although
I highly doubt he was diagnose
d
with some sort of mental illness
,
you never know. I hear
d
the least sane are those who help the insane.

I spoke to him on our last visit, telling him that I wanted to start my investigation.
He
suggested that before I go into Willow Brook, I
do some
research
,
p
erhaps
starting
with the murders that prompted my sister to seek the help of Freedom
Project
.

Personally, I don’t see how murders in the late
1990
s
could remotely be connected to me. But I’d look. In fact, I’d try to look into all unsolved murders in the Willow Brook, Colville,
Jamestown
,
Hartford
,
and New Haven areas.

I
knew
it wasn’t going to be easy. Research never was.

Perhaps there was a book
or
something. I envisioned myself at the campus library, going
through
hours
and hours of microfilm of news
papers looking at stories, because I don’t know exactly when these murders took place.

I headed to the campus
library;
I
thought
the
ir
re
s
our
c
es would be bigger than the local
one
. They asked for my driver’s license. I was reluctant
to comply
because of my name.
But the young man, whom I’ll assume
w
as a volunteer
,
didn’t notice. He filled in the information and
immediately
made me
a
library card.

I looked in awe
at
the thing that resembled a credit card.

I even chuckled because it was nothing like the paper cards we had years earlier.

But even I knew
that
the best resource was the librarian
.
T
hey were typically historians as well. Surely, she would help me. More than likely,
she’d
instruct me to go to the local libraries of each community. If I had to
,
I would.

But I thought I'd asked first.

“Can I speak to your librarian?” I asked the young man.

“She’s in her office. Is there a problem?”

“I wanted to ask her some question about some research I need to do. It’s been so long since I’ve been to a library; last I recall the librarians were pretty good at that.”

“I’m good at it.”

“Really?” I said. “You’re so young.”

“They train us well.”

I thought immediately
that they didn’t train him too well, considering he didn’t recognize my name. Then again, we were in a bigger town
,
and why would he give it a second thought.

“Unsolved murders in the Colville, Jamestown, New Haven
a
reas. Hartford, too. She would know where I’d look in the card catalog.”

He choked out a laugh. “I’m sorry.”

“What?” I was confused.

“We don’t use the card catalog anymore. Not really.”

“You don’t use the Dewey decimal system
?
”

“Oh, we do. Just not the card catalog. And why are you looking up books
?
T
he information is at your fingertips
.
”

I heaved in a breath, wincing. “I really don’t feel like going through hours of microfilm.”

He laughed again. “You can
do that. But try on
line first.
A lot of you
r
papers are there. Not to mention the stor
i
es.”

Not wanting to appear ignorant, I nodded, acting as if I knew what he meant
w
hen
,
clearly, I didn't. “Oh, how silly. On … line. Why didn’t I think of that? And where can I do that?”

He pointed.

I thought, okay, what was he pointing at. I
apparently
looked
clueless
.

“The sign?” he said.

With another nod, I did notice the sign.
It read: Computer Lab, with arrow pointing down the steps.

“You’ll need to enter the identification number on your
library
card.”

I thank
ed
him and followed the sign.

A computer lab. Wow. I did know what a computer was. It
had been
a topic of discussion with
Richie and me
. He wanted to get one really bad. A Compaq computer that was supposed to be state of the art. But it cost over a thousand dollars
,
and that was a lot of money for a
mechanic’s
family.

The only time I had ever used one was when my mother got the Radio Shack Tandy computer
,
and even
then,
I gave up because it took hours to key in letters and numbers and codes all to make a spinning box
.

I
gasped
at the thought and prayed that computers
had come
a
long
way.

I knew they had.

What in the world, though, was a computer lab?

I soon found out after going down the stairs.

It wasn’t a laboratory like I envisioned from science class. It was a room full of computers. Rows and rows of them.
People
used them.
My God, the library must really have funds in Hartford.

Surely, the local ones didn’t have those. Maybe one.

I lucked out.
But I didn’t have a clue on what to do.

A swirling design was on the compute I chose to use.

I
stared
at it
. How was I
supposed
to get the
design
off the
screen?

I looked around. Who looked friendly enough to approach? I hate even speaking to people
,
but I had to.

I stood and just as I did, a young girl walked up to me. She had a library
identification
card hanging from her neck.

“You look lost.”

“I
s
this
broke
?” I pointed to the computer. “
Out
of
commission
?”

“I don’t think so,” she said sweetly. Then reached down. She grabbed on to the oval object, the thing I would soon learn was called a mouse
,
and moved it. “Nope. Fine. Just enter your ID number.”

A small gray panel that said ‘log in’ was before me. It was so
S
tar
W
ars, I felt out of my league.

I sat back down and entered
my number
slowly.
I never really was any good at typing.

And I waited.

“You have to press enter.”

Enter. Enter. Enter
.
I shifted my eyes around and
saw
the word on the keyboard. “Oh, the return key
,
” I said aloud and hit it. Suddenly the screen changed and I was
staring
at a computer picture of the college campus.

“Okay
,
”
s
he said and pulled up a chair.
“Forgive me. But you really look lost.”

“I am.” I looked at the young girl. She had to be about eighteen. Long blonde hair. Just cute and
innocent
. But she looked smart.
I w
as willing to wager
that
all young people were smarter than we ever were. “I have never used a computer.”

“Ever?”

I shook my head. “A
Tandy
.”

She fluttered
her lips. “I heard of that
. It’s like the first sort of computer.”

Again, I nodded. “
For
instance
,
I am
fairly
familiar
with the keys here. Because they are like an electric typewriter. But
w
hat is that?” I indicated to the oval mouse.

“A mouse.”

“Why do that call it that?”

“Notice how this
cord
comes out of it?”
She lifted the white line.

“Yes.”

“Earlier version, really early version looked like a
mouse
and the
a name
stuck
.
This
maneuvers
,
”
s
he pointed to
an arrow on the screen
,
“
t
his.”

I
watched
the arrow move and then her hand. “That’s amazing.”

“
You click where you want it to go. Here
,
try.
”

She grabbed my hand and placed it on the mouse.

“Move it around and watch the screen.”

I did.
A simple thing, just moving the arrow around and around.

“Are
you writing a paper?
Or are
you going on
line?”

“That’s the word.”

She smiled
and titled her head.

“I told that boy I wanted to do research on
unsolved
murder mysteries. And that I thought about looking at microfilm and he said try on line. What is this
‘
on line
’
? Is i
t
like a row of books
,
r
ow of information manuals, newspapers, what?”

“
You’re
kidding
,
right?”

I shook my head.

“This is not a joke.” She looked around. “Like one
of
the boys isn’t joking me?”

“No, really, I’m clueless.”

“And I thought m
y
mom was. Were you on an
island
or
something?
” She hurriedly lifted her hand. “Kidding.”

“Sort of.
I was …” I pause.
Really?
Was I going to tell her I was locked away for eighteen years in an institute for the criminally insane?
No. I thought. “I was very religious and was in a part of the world that didn’t have any of this. No television, no computers, no on line
stuff
.”

“And the first thing you look up is murders?”

“
Yeah
,
” I answered with an apologetic look.

“Cool.”

I liked the girl. Her name was Stacey and before she set me free to do my research, she
educated
me on a thing called the Internet. What it is, what is does
,
and how people use it.