I saw the muscles of Colm’s throat work. I wasn’t expecting tears, but that uncomfortable stiffness in the throat, that was promising.
“Then you made yourself into a caricature of toughness,” I said. “You wanted to be stronger than you’d ever thought Aidan was. But that wasn’t the point. Aidan couldn’t have solved the problem by being taller or stronger or faster or tougher. You know that.”
I tore up my own handful of grass, uncomfortable in the role of armchair psychologist. Between the two of us, Colm Hennessy and I would defoliate the whole patch of ground under his mother’s beloved tree.
“I like fighting,” Colm said. “Wrestling and boxing and weightlifting, I like those things for themselves, as sports.”
“I believe you,” I said. “But they have their limits. If you want to feel better about Aidan being here, I think you need to go talk to him, instead of retreating into your gym with your heavy bag.”
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Yeah, okay.”
I felt relieved. I’d done what I’d come out here to do. Now I wanted out, before I said the wrong thing and undid it all. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go up.”
30
Dr. Leventhal, the department psychologist, was an approximately ninety-nine pound woman with lovely iron-gray curls and a very faint British accent long eroded by life in America. I’d never had the chance- or rather, the requirement- to work with her. So I was mildly surprised that she knew my name when I stuck my head in her door.
“Detective Pribek,” she said. “You can come all the way in; I’m not busy.” She was impeccable in a pale-rose suit and a small gold Star of David around her neck, and even though I was in clothes and boots suitable for the job, I suddenly felt as rumpled as a bloodhound.
“I only wanted to ask you a quick question,” I said. “I don’t really need anything.”
“Please go ahead,” she said. “I’ll help if I can.”
“Let me run a hypothetical situation by you,” I said. “If someone was told repeatedly, from the age of three or four, that he’d been badly bitten by a dog at that age- even if it never happened- could he develop a vivid memory of the incident? One that’s almost visual?”
Since she was a psychologist, I was expecting a wordy and inconclusive answer. I was wrong.
“Yes,” Dr. Leventhal said. “It helps that the child in question is so young. Age three to four is generally accorded to be the threshold of recall. But even adults have been known to fabricate memories when psychologists encourage them to.”
“Why would a psychologist encourage that?” I asked.
“For a study,” she said. “Sometimes a subject’s brother or sister is called upon to prompt the subject to remember a ‘childhood event’ that never happened. Under those circumstances, the individuals being studied tend to agree the event took place, and some even add details that they ‘remember.’ ” She paused. “A subject’s likelihood of doing this depends somewhat on how imaginative or credulous they are. Significant also is who’s trying to convince them: an older sibling’s word is more likely to have the ring of authority than a younger sibling’s. Who’s doing the persuading in your case?”
“A parent,” I said.
“That would definitely qualify,” she said. “Memory can be the servant of emotional needs. If a child had a strong desire to believe what he or she had been told, then certainly, he or she could construct a memory and develop a related fear.” Dr. Leventhal uncrossed and recrossed her legs. “I should have asked you, did the child in question have any sort of help from a hypnotherapist in sorting out his memories?”
I shook my head. “Is that a bad thing?”
“Well, improperly practiced hypnotherapy has been implicated in the construction of false memories. Most often, we see that from therapists who specialize in sexual abuse. When the patient wants to ‘please’ the practitioner, often she’ll agree to leading questions under hypnosis: for example, ‘Is there someone else in the room with you?’ ”
“Not this time,” I said. “This boy didn’t have any therapy at all.”
Dr. Leventhal nodded. “I don’t mean to denigrate hypnosis altogether, but there’s still so much we don’t understand about it. Or about memory, for that matter. It’s a truly amazing field. Do you know what a screen memory is?”
I shook my head.
“Psychologists don’t always quite agree on the definition, or on how common it is,” she said. “But at its core, a screen memory is a defense mechanism. Some patients who have been through traumas can’t remember them at first. They remember simpler, more acceptable events.”
“Like what?” I said, interested despite myself.
“For example, a patient might say, ‘I looked out the window and saw a pair of crows in my neighbor’s yard,’ when in fact she saw a man beating a woman. The mind replaces an unacceptable image with an acceptable one. A screen.”
I must have looked amazed, because she smiled. “The mind is very powerful in its own defense,” she said.
“That’s fascinating,” I said.
“I can tell you’re interested,” she agreed, “because when we started talking, you were hanging back in my doorway, and now you’re halfway to my desk.”
I realized it was true.
“You seem quite skittish in here, Detective Pribek,” she said. “I assure you, I don’t strap people into one of my chairs and force them to discuss their childhoods.”
“Well, that’s good,” I said. “You’d be bored with recollections of my personal life. I had a pretty dull childhood.”
“It’s a common misconception that psychologists are only interested in the abnormal,” she said. “Healthy minds are often as fascinating as troubled ones.” Then she tilted her head slightly. “I wonder, though, if you’re being entirely honest with me when you call your growing-up years boring.”
“Well,” I said lightly, “I don’t remember seeing any crows, if that’s what you mean.”
A co-worker’s unexpectedly bad summer cold forced me into the slot of on-call detective two nights in a row, and I didn’t visit the Hennessy place either of those evenings. On the third day I glanced at the calendar, wondering why the date seemed to stick in my memory. After a moment it came to me: today was Marlinchen and Aidan’s eighteenth birthday.
The summer solstice was less than a week away, and the day was still bright as midafternoon when I drove out after work, parked, and went up to the French doors. Normally, Marlinchen was making dinner at this hour, but the kitchen was empty. Some pots and utensils were out on the counters, but no one was to be seen. I went around to the front door and knocked.
When Marlinchen opened the door, she looked years older than her age, wearing a silky cinnamon-colored shirt and a straight black skirt. Before I could comment on that, though, or she could speak, I noticed something else.
The Hennessys had never, in the time I’d known them, used the formal dining room. Generally, the kids ate at the kitchen table, where I’d first looked for them tonight. But now the family was grouped around the long table in the dining room. A pair of candles glowed between serving dishes, and faces turned to look at me.
The long and lanky form of Aidan, though, was not among them. Instead, at the head of the table, light gleamed off the metal of a cane that leaned against the chair. I lifted my gaze and met the pale-blue eyes of Hugh Hennessy.