Salter, Anna C (16 page)

I almost did. I was almost out the door when the phone rang. I started to keep going, but then I thought it might be Marv. Maybe he wanted me to bring something with me. Maybe he was calling to tell me Ginger was camped outside his office door again and we should meet somewhere else. That turned me around. I picked up the phone, but it was Melissa, my secretary.

"Michael, I called the other office, but you weren't there. I'm sorry to bother you at home."

"No problem. What's up?"

"You had a very strange call from someone named Harvey, and I thought you might want to know about it. He said his neighbor was acting very peculiarly, and he needed to talk to you right away. I said I'd try to reach you. Do you want his number?"

I took it. Harvey was Camille's neighbor, and I thought guiltily that I hadn't yet called Camille to reschedule our appointment. She had gotten out of the hospital over the weekend, but I had been trying to keep my head from falling apart on Monday and had canceled our appointment. I should have called by now to reschedule, but I had gotten caught up dealing with Lucy's rapist. The biggest problem with being a therapist is all the balls you have to keep up in the air.

I called Harvey. "Michael." he said, sounding very relieved, "I don't know what to do about Camille." Harvey knew she was my client, since we had gotten permission from Camille to call him when she was in the hospital.

"What do you mean?" I said. "What's going on?"

"I haven't seen her very much since she got out of the hospital. I've been trying to keep an eye on her, but she hasn't been out all that much, not even to walk the dog." Harvey was the kind of neighbor everybody should have. He had been aghast when we called him from the hospital and he realized Camille was that ill and had no friends or relatives around.

But Camille hadn't grown up in the Upper Valley. She had only moved here a few years ago, after the attack, and she had been a recluse ever since. How do you make friends when you never leave the house and never talk to anyone? The only people she had talked to had been a couple of therapists whom she had seen before me —neither of whom had lasted very long. Both therapists had wanted Camille to talk about the assault, and Camille had left therapy because she couldn't do that without falling apart.

As for relatives —Camille didn't have any to speak of. She had told me her mother died a few years ago. and she hadn't seen her father since her parents' divorce when she was twelve. There weren't any siblings, and if there were extended family, she didn't know about them.

She survived on disability—which in her case, was well deserved. She truly couldn't work, and through no fault of her own. But if someone didn't work and didn't go out socially, they could live a hell of a long time in a place without knowing anybody.

I thought briefly of Camille's former life. There had been plenty of friends in Boston, but she had left all of them behind. She was fearful that if anybody knew where she had gone, somehow the perp would find out. It didn't make sense, but then trauma makes the fear center in your head the size of a watermelon, and that doesn't leave a whole lot of room for logic.

Harvey went on. "Then a little while ago, she started screaming, just screaming. Michael, it was chilling. I started to call the police, but then it stopped, and I wasn't sure I should. I didn't want to freak her. So I went over.

"The whole place was quiet. I knocked, but nobody came to the door. It was so silent it gave me the creeps. I thought all dogs barked when they heard something. I just got back, and I wasn't sure what to do, so I decided to call you first. Should I call the police ... or the hospital ... or somebody?"

I considered it. What could the police do? There would likely be a confrontation with Keeter. If Camille was in a major flashback and couldn't call her off, Keeter wouldn't be likely to let strange men anywhere near Camille.

This would not be a good thing. The police would have to do something to Keeter to get to Camille, hopefully temporary but maybe permanent. Keeter was Camille's only sense of safety. If anything happened to Keeter, Camille would be in even worse shape than she was now. And, even if the police only did something temporary to Keeter, it would confirm Camille's greatest fears that Keeter could be gotten around.

Calling the hospital wasn't even an option. They had zippo for outreach. Harvey could call the community mental center. They had outreach, but they didn't know Camille. And they didn't know Keeter. Actually, the problem was more that Keeter didn't know them, any more than she knew the police.

''No," I said. "I'll check on her. Give me the address, and I'll swing by." I put the words out there and then immediately wanted to swallow them. I hate going to clients' houses. It seems like a kind of boundary crossing to me. It always has an impact on the relationship. It makes it more social and less professional.

But what could the police or mental health guys do if they came? Even if they didn't shoot Keeter, no doubt they'd haul Camille off to an inpatient unit, which would lead to her sitting around an emergency room for seven hours or so while people fought about what to do with her. If Camille could stay at home, she should. But I had no doubt she was exhibiting a level of craziness that would keep the police, particularly, from seeing it that way. If they came, they'd surely take her in.

"Michael," Harvey said. "Why isn't there somebody looking after her? Did the hospital just release her with nobody?"

"Oh, Harvey," I said. "You've missed about fifteen years of so-called progress. You know all those people eating out of trash cans and sleeping in dumpsters in every city? A whole lot of them are mentally ill. This society has taken the "enlightened" position that the mentally ill can look after themselves. Hospitals literally put people on the streets who have no money, no place to sleep, and who are hearing voices.

"It's supposed to be about 'least restrictive environments,' but it's about money and what it costs to feed and house them." I had hated community care for the mentally ill since it first came in. Mostly, it meant no care at all.

"But this is the Upper Valley!" Harvey's voice had outrage in it. I knew from the waitresses at Sweet Tomatoes that Harvey was a gentle soul who paid staff fairly and treated them well.

"Makes no difference," I said. "We don't have as many mentally ill as cities do, but hospital mental health units are pretty much revolving doors everywhere. Managed care won't pay for extended stays, and anyway, these guys rarely have any kind of insurance. People go through those revolving doors here like everywhere else."

Harvey was silent, probably speechless. If he thought this was bad, I should tell him about all the abused children I'd seen returned to violent, even sadistic parents under the rubric of "family preservation." "Child annihilation" was more like it.

I hung up and thought about what I had just agreed to. I just hated to go to clients' houses, but what could it hurt? I'd just assess the situation on my way to see Marv. I couldn't do a lot for Camille but see that she was safe and not suicidal. But then again, that wasn't small potatoes. I called Marv to tell him I had to make a stop on the way and walked out.

Camille's house was a small two-story colonial with a fenced-in yard a few blocks from the main street of town. All the towns in the Upper Valley are small enough that there is no such thing as a town house, but Camille had gotten as close to Main Street as she could. I had expected to find something like that. The remoteness and isolation of the country wouldn't appeal to her right now.

Thank God for the fenced-in yard. It wouldn't necessarily keep Keeter in—the fence wasn't that tall—but it would keep kids from wandering into her territory.

I walked around to the back of the house before I knocked just to see the whole setup. There was a park behind the houses on that block, a good place to take Keeter to play. No doubt that had made the house more appealing, since that tiny yard wouldn't do much for a dog that big. Not that Camille would have been letting her run much lately. She probably had poor Keeter's collar glued to her wrist.

Harvey had been leaving for work, so I didn't stop by. Restaurant owners, or Harvey anyway, didn't seem to fly into work at eight o'clock like the rest of us. He was always wandering in just in time to get ready for the lunch crowd. His wife taught school, so I knew she wouldn't be there either. I walked up to Camille's house and knocked on the door.

No answer. No bark.

I tried the bell.

No answer. Where was Keeter?

I couldn't just leave Camille like that, knowing she was inside. What if she had hanged herself, it suddenly occurred to me. Jesus, I should have thought of that earlier. I was going to beat myself up forever for not letting Harvey call the police if something terrible had happened to Camille.

But then again, maybe she was just afraid of who might be at the door.

"Camille," I called out. "It's Michael. I need to talk to you."

There was silence.

"Camille, answer the door. I really have to know you're all right."

Still silence.

I started to threaten calling the police —I didn't really have a choice if she wouldn't let me in—when I heard, "Michael?" The voice was faint, but it was there. At least she hadn't hanged herself. It was something. "Is it really you?"

"It's really me, Camille. Please open the door."

I heard the sound of footsteps. Camille hadn't been far, and the door opened up just the length of the chain inside. Camille peered out. "Are you alone?"

I wanted to say, "No, I brought a serial killer with me," but thought better of it. I have that weird sense of humor that kicks in at tense times, but I try to keep a leash on it. Not everybody appreciates it, and I was pretty sure Camille wouldn't.

"Of course," I said. "I'm alone." She still seemed to hesitate, but then she closed the door and took off the chain. She opened it slowly, and I stepped in.

The first thing I noticed was Keeter in a crouch about ten feet from the door. She was so tense her muscles were bunching. She looked like an ad for a weight-lifting magazine for dogs. "Meet Ms. Canine Olympia. Tell us, Ms. Keeter, how do you maintain that rippled look?"

"People," she'd say. "Breakfast of champions."

I had to admit the crouch looked like the kind dogs spring from, and the only thing that looked remotely like a target was me.

But Keeter knew me, I reminded myself. She should, anyway. I took a deep breath and started to approach her to say "hello," thinking once Keeter recognized me she'd go off red alert.

"Michael," Camille said sharply. "I wouldn't do that."

I stopped. "Why not?" I asked.

"She's a guard dog. I mean really. She used to protect a service station at night after it was closed. She's trained to let someone get in the door and then attack. She's really bad about her territory. Just don't move toward her. When she's in that frame of mind she feels trapped if you move toward her."

I backed up. On second thought maybe I wouldn't say hello. "Why doesn't she bark?" I asked.

"Training," Camille answered. "She was trained to stay quiet and ambush an intruder." I halfway turned back to Camille. I couldn't bring myself to fully turn my back on that coiled spring on the floor, but the more important thing was Camille and the fact that she was making sense.

I noticed for the first time that she was clutching a bottle of pills. "What are the pills?" I asked tensely. Maybe my suicidal fantasies weren't so off after all.

"Haldol," she said. "I thought he was here, and I just lost it. I heard him. I finally got it together enough to take Haldol. I took double," she said sheepishly.

No wonder she was making sense. "Do you remember screaming?" I asked.

"No," she said and paused. "I heard some screaming, but I didn't realize it was me. Was it me?"

"It was you," I said. "Your neighbor Harvey called me. He was afraid you needed help, and nobody came to the door when he knocked."

I kept checking in on Keeter out of the corner of my eye as I talked. She looked like she was relaxing somewhat. Her muscles didn't have that tightly clenched, one-more-inch-and-you're-mine look.

"Oh," she said. "I heard someone at the door, but I just thought it was him coming back." I knew who "him" was by now: the sweet soul who had kidnapped her, taped her face and head, no doubt raped her, but also probably tortured her. I didn't know the details, but I knew they were bad enough to have almost destroyed the woman in front of me.

"No," I said, "It was just Harvey. What happened?"

"He was back again," she said. "The only way I can cope with it is by eating these," she said holding up the Haldol. "Sometimes I just wish he'd kill me and get it over with."

"Let's sit down," I said, "and talk for a minute." Camille sighed and then let me into the living room. Keeter looked better, but I took a wide berth around her just in case. Some friend she was. Enter the wrong door and you're morning snack.

"Camille," I said after we were seated, "do you really believe it was him and not a flashback?"

"I don't know," she said. "It didn't seem like a flashback. The flashbacks have always been to things that really happened. I mean, I'd wake up and see him duct-taping my face — I could feel it —or that he was ... he was ..."

"Stop," I said. "Better not to think about it. It's been a bad morning, and you could trigger another whatever-you-want-to-call-it. But what do you mean? How is this different from the other ones?"

"These are never about what he's done," she said thoughtfully. "He just keeps threatening what he's going to do."

"It isn't a replay of things that happened before?"

"No," she said. Keeter had come in and lain down at her feet. I guess she had finally decided I wasn't there to rob the gas station or mug Camille. Camille scratched her head. Keeter laid her head on Camille's feet and turned her belly up. It was a side of Keeter I hadn't seen. It was a side of Camille I hadn't seen either. She was thinking a whole lot more clearly than she usually was after a flashback. Maybe she needed to double her meds.