"Ah." Roden noted that the job description didn't exactly explain his lock picking abilities, but he left it alone.
The three reluctant companions headed into the studio apartment. Roden noticed right away that things were not right. Max wasn't a neat freak, but he certainly wasn't a slob, either. Therefore, the current condition of the young man's home shocked his psychiatrist friend. It looked ransacked. The door had been locked, and nothing appeared to be stolen or destroyed; but discarded papers and books were strewn in odd places, closets and cabinets hung open with the contents shoved to and fro, and chair cushions and pillows were tossed haphazardly about.
"Quite the bachelor pad," Martin commented.
Roden was upset. This didn't represent Max's case very well. If Max was the one who did this to his own home, then clearly his obsession for Esther had overridden any other compulsions he had. If this was his doing, then just what made him react this way?
"Well?" Manda asked, " Do you see any clues?"
Nothing appeared obvious to him other than the evident disarray. He headed to the back of the flat, and pried through Max's clothes closet. There were no clothes littering the floor of the closet like there had been in Esther's apartment, but there were several empty hangers, indicating that items were missing.
Roden searched for Max's brown leather bomber jacket without success. He had worn it all winter for the last two years, so it's absence could be significant. Of course, the night had turned rather cool, so he may be wearing it for immediate warmth rather than taking it for the long term. There was evidence that his young friend packed, but no accurate evidence of what he packed for.
"Huh," Martin spoke from the other side of the apartment. "This must be his own personal collection of Esther art."
Roden walked apprehensively over to the site that Martin commented on. He never recalled seeing any artwork of Esther in Max's home before. True, he kept several works in his studio, but Roden thought the young man had distanced himself enough from the subject to leave her there, and not take her home.
Nevertheless, there she was in the coat closet, or what should have been the coat closet. Since he was Max's friend as well as his therapist, Roden had been in this place several times during the years since Max had occupied it. Only now did he realize that he had never seen inside this closet.
The largest and most distinctive example consisted of a creamy white statuette figure of Esther in flowing garb and the wings of an angel. It must have been three feet tall, but a painted wooden crate that acted as a pedestal brought its height almost to eye level. On the three walls of the closet were numerous pictures of the idolized woman, captured in several mediums: charcoal, pencil, pastel oils. Some were displayed in frames; others were simply pinned to the wall. They showed her in varying stages of youth and maturity. One drawing, Roden guessed it to be charcoal, even displayed an old woman. She looked wrinkled and weak, but her eyes still displayed the beautiful kindness present in all the artist's Esther works.
Another portrait caught Roden's eye and held it: a drawing of the child Esther penciled on lined paper from a notebook. It looked more rudimentary than all the others, but the talent was there. It must have been one of Max's first, done at a young age, when he should have been paying attention in school.
Roden shuttered, and Manda looked stunned. Seeing the statues in the art gallery were nothing compared to this. She didn't know what to make of it, but Roden knew it wouldn't be long before she began voicing her distress, and he didn't look forward to it.
Martin spoke before either Roden or Manda could find their own words to utter. "Well, it looks like the man has been holding out on us."
"Yes," Roden responded, bewildered. "I had thought he'd managed to separate himself from this 'divine image' he created out of Esther."
"Guess not." Martin rejoined, with a shade too much entertainment evident in his voice.
"I knew he still created works with her in mind. I even congratulated him on the collection at the gallery; but I thought he had it under control. I mean . . . he did other subjects, too. Not everything he created was Esther. But I've never seen these. I had no idea he made so many – or kept so many." Roden shook himself, surprised to find that he had made this observation out loud. It was unlike him to be so indiscreet and unprofessional, since Max was, in fact, his patient. The worst part, though, was that his words set Manda off.
"You told me you were a psychiatrist! How could a psychiatrist know so little about his patient's mental illness? You said you've known him for seventeen years? But you apparently know nothing! Look at this," She tore a picture off the wall. "Does it look like he's separated himself from his work? What the hell kind of a demented freak draws picture after picture of some innocent girl he barely even met?"
Practically in tears and hysterics, she crumpled the paper and threw it in Roden's face. He worked to keep his calm, though he met few people in his life that were able to make him falter in his self-control like she could.
Manda then turned to the statue and tried to shove it off its pedestal. Martin grabbed her before she succeeded, and held her, trying to calm her. Roden could see that she was under a great amount of stress over the welfare of her friend. Manda seemed the sort of person who might be better off exhibiting her emotions. If she bottled them up, when she finally went off, it would be like an atomic bomb. So, he stood there as Manda poured out her anger, fright and frustration, and let Martin hold her to subdue her physical display.
Roden turned away from the scene as Manda's emotions continued. That's when he noticed the bare space on the wall over the desk in the corner. He took a few steps in that direction. On the wall there were still four pins piercing torn edges of paper.
The answer suddenly came to him. "I know where they went!" Roden blurted out. He turned towards his companions. "I know where they went."
Suddenly, Manda became quiet. After a few sniffles, she croaked out "What?"
"Max knows how to survive a winter in the wilderness. He did it during his senior year of college. Well, not the whole winter, but winter break and part of the spring semester. He spent some time in a cabin in the wilderness preserve up north. He was writing an anthropology thesis on habits influenced by the lack of human contact, or something like that. He thought that the best example of this study would be to act as his own model for some firsthand experience.
He didn't have a car at the time, so I drove him up there. When I picked him up three months later, he said the seclusion had been the greatest peace in his life, and that he would gladly do it again for the escape."
"Escape!" Manda cried, "You think he escaped up to the wilderness preserve?"
"Well," replied Roden, "He had a map of the preserve pinned up on the wall here. It looks like it was torn down in haste, like he grabbed it on his way out the door."
"He took her into the woods?"
"That seems like the most likely place."
"But it's huge, isn't it?" Martin added his own question into the mix.
Roden took a deep breath. It was huge, however, there were only twelve cabins on the entire preserve. The cabin Max had rented was in the southwestern corner of the wilderness. Wasn't it? Would he go back to the same cabin? Could Roden remember how to get there?