Model Child_a psychological thriller Read online

  Norma nodded. “They’re much more complete than usual. Every time he passed gas, someone wrote it down.”

  “Good. I want to take my time going over them. Now tell me, did he maintain a total silence?”

  She nodded. “He talked to no one. Not to his brothers or sister, or his lawyer, or even his priest. The thing is, they’re supposed to be a tight-knit family. His lawyer—that’s something else, his lawyer’s also a close friend. They’ve known each other forever.”

  “Maybe he’s catatonic,” Dwight volunteered. “Or maybe he’s puttin’ on some kinda catatonic act.”

  She shook her head again. “They said he paced around the cell, sometimes for hours at a time. When he wasn’t pacing, he read or wrote. He keeps a notebook or a journal or something.”

  Gottlieb brought his fingertips together, like the steeple of a church. “Do we know what he was reading?”

  “The Bible.”

  “Shee-it,” muttered Dwight. “Mo’-fo’ cracks his kid’s skull, chokes her, and then he gets hisself religion.”

  “Maybe he’s a schizophrenic with religious delusions,” said Norma. “God told him to do it and so forth.”

  They fell momentarily silent. Gottlieb had followed the case since the onset, had become as caught up in it as most of the population, and now he was about to meet its central figure. “So they finally sent us the infamous James Shannon. I was wondering when we’d get him.”

  ⸎

  Gottlieb knocked on the steel door to Shannon’s cell before unlocking it with an oversized key. They’d put him in a camera cell, a routine precaution. His every moment, waking and sleeping, reading and writing and pacing, eating and defecating, would remain under scrutiny.

  He lay on his bunk, on his back, staring at the ceiling, his arms crossed in front of his chest, as his visitor introduced himself. “Mr. Shannon, my name is Dr. Gottlieb.”

  Shannon turned his head and glanced at him, but otherwise he gave no acknowledgment of Gottlieb’s presence. He resumed his fixed gaze at the ceiling a second later. For want of something else to do, Gottlieb scrutinized his new patient. Of course, he had seen many pictures of him on TV and in the papers, but he was still ill-prepared for the stark normality of Shannon’s appearance. A man of about five ten and 160 pounds, he had dark blue eyes and thinning black hair flecked with gray. A trim mustache, neither thick nor narrow. Apart from a slightly weak chin, his features were blandly regular. He had a face, observed Gottlieb to himself, that was made to be lost in a crowd. If he’d committed a stickup instead of a murder, and ten people witnessed it, they would have described him in ten different ways. The Banality of Evil. If James Shannon had committed the crime of which he stood accused, thought Gottlieb, the notable phrase caught him perfectly.

  “How are you feeling?” he began.

  No answer.

  “Do you know where you are?”

  Shannon kept silent, so Gottlieb answered his own question. “It’s a place called the Greater Chicago Forensic Institute. A kind of hospital, a psychiatric facility for people in trouble with the law. They transferred you here from jail. Do you know why you were arrested?”

  Again, no answer, but he thought he caught the faintest quivering of Shannon’s lower lip.

  Gottlieb’s eyes fell upon the cell’s small table, bolted to the floor, which also served as a makeshift desk. Neatly arranged on it were a Bible, a pair of reading glasses, and a Polaroid picture propped against the wall. The picture showed a pleasant-looking woman with warm eyes and reddish-blonde hair who appeared to be forty, give or take a few years. The camera caught her smiling, but something in the set of her face suggested wariness and tension.

  He picked up the photo carefully by the edges. “Attractive woman. Your wife?”

  Shannon shifted on top of his bunk and turned towards him again, acknowledging the question with the briefest nod. His eyes begin to well up. He wiped them brusquely with the sleeve of his tan regulation sweatshirt.

  “She passed away, I understand,” he pressed on. “A year and half ago, it was? It must have been a difficult time for you.”

  Shannon shifted on the bunk again. This time, he turned on his side and faced the wall. Gottlieb took another step towards the desk and picked up the Bible. It was open to the book of Job. He read to himself:

  “And the Lord said onto Satan, Hast thou

  considered my servant Job . . . A perfect and

  an upright man, one that feareth God, and

  escheweth evil?”

  “I see you’ve been reading the book of Job,” he noted casually. “I’m no expert on the Bible, but that particular book has always fascinated me. It tackles the basic question, doesn’t it? Why does a benign God allow evil? I think all of us can relate to Job at one point or another in our lives.” He replaced the Bible on the desk. “I’m wondering if you feel like him right now. If you feel as though you’re being tested.”

  Still no answer, but Shannon had moved his head on the pillow, as if to cock an ear towards his visitor. Despite the silence, Gottlieb sensed that he paid close attention.

  He switched to a different tack. “I’m wondering if you’re afraid to talk to me. If you think it would hurt your case in court.” He shifted his weight from one leg to another. “You should know this, Mr. Shannon. Psychiatric testimony can’t be used against you, not unless it has been obtained with your knowledge and permission. That’s not something I just made up. It’s based on a Supreme Court ruling. If you don’t believe me, ask your lawyer.”

  Gottlieb took a step towards the cell door. “I’ll be back to see you tomorrow, Mr. Shannon. If you want to talk to someone before then, there are people available to you. I believe Ms. Caldwell and Mr. Sanderson have already introduced themselves to you. They’re willing to do what they can for you, but you’ll have to meet them halfway.”

  He closed the door, locked it, and walked slowly back to his office. There, he found himself thinking of Iago. In his view, one of the most intriguing villains in all of literature. Another banal man. Iago, whose motives Shakespeare had left so tantalizingly vague, whose guilt propelled him into lasting silence.

  Gottlieb wondered if he’d just crossed paths with a latter-day Iago.

  ⸎

  When Gottlieb went to see him Tuesday morning, Shannon was sitting on the edge of his bed instead of lying on it. Again, he met Gottlieb’s greeting with a stony silence.

  His breakfast tray sat on the desk. Shannon had consumed about half a bowl of cold cereal and most of a cup of coffee, but he’d ignored everything else. Gottlieb glanced at the neglected banana, the barely touched wedge of crumb cake, the unopened carton of orange juice. “You don’t have much of an appetite, I see.”

  No response.

  “You haven’t had a full meal since you came here. I went through your records from the jail. You didn’t eat much there either.”

  He paused. “I’m wondering how long it’s been going on, your loss of appetite. If it started when they arrested you, or before. A loss of appetite can mean a lot of different things. A physical problem, or depression, or an overwhelming fear. Sometimes people fear they’re being poisoned. Perhaps you’ve had those fears yourself. If that’s the case”—he walked over to the desk, ostentatiously broke off a piece of the cake and ate it— “if that’s the case, I wish I could make you believe that your fears are unfounded.”

  Nothing.

  Gottlieb spied the notebook on the desk, an ordinary grade school composition book with a black-and-white speckled cover. “Sometimes we find it easier to write things down than to say them aloud. We have thoughts and feelings we can’t give voice to. You often write, you’ve done it since they arrested you. If you’d rather communicate to me that way, I’m willing to read whatever you’ve written.”

  For the first time, Shannon looked Gottlieb in the eyes. He

  shook his head, visibly alarmed. Gottlieb raised a hand to reassure him. “I won’t read what you’ve written withou
t your consent. Standing offer.” A partial truth: Gottlieb would certainly read it if Shannon maintained his silence. But for now, he wanted his patient to maintain a small measure of control over his circumstances.

  Gottlieb moved toward the door. “I have to go now, Mr. Shannon. We’re getting an emergency admission. But I’ll be back tomorrow. Don’t forget what I told you about your journal. I’ll read it when you want me to, but not before.”

  Shannon looked away from him, holding on to his silence like a life buoy.

  ⸎

  The third time Gottlieb saw him, he tried a number of ploys. He suggested that they meet with members of his family present, or his lawyer, or any combination of them. He speculated aloud about Shannon’s depression or anxiety, his shock at finding himself trapped in a waking nightmare, his frustration that no one could possibly understand him. He brought up the book of Job again. Knowing Shannon’s staunchly Catholic background, he suggested another visit from his parish priest. He asked the standard, predictable psychiatric questions—about his family, his upbringing, his neighborhood, his job—in as calm and unthreatening a manner as Gottlieb could muster. And he tried to keep his own frustration in check, even as it mounted by the minute. Gottlieb had considerable but not inexhaustible patience.

  At times, he sensed that Shannon wished to talk to him, was on the verge of talking to him. At times, he sensed it took an act of will for him not to talk. Once or twice, he even thought he saw the man’s lips tremble.

  Gottlieb moved towards the door. Just as he prepared to leave, another stratagem occurred to him. What the hell, I might as well give it one last shot.

  He turned around, faced his charge, speaking slowly and softly. “It doesn’t matter where we are or what we’ve done. Most of us, almost all of us, have a need to be understood. Now this is what I’m trying to understand, Mr. Shannon. A man of fifty-five kills his only child one night while she lies in her bed. This man has never been in trouble with the law, and he has no known history of mental problems. By all accounts—and I’ve gone through the case record file pretty thoroughly—he’s a decent man, hardworking, steady, the manager of an office supply store. He held the same job for twenty years, or was it more than that? He’s religious, he goes to Mass regularly. He makes no effort to hide what he’s done. To the contrary, he calls the police immediately.”

  Gottlieb paused. “The question is a very simple one. Why does such a man do such a thing?”

  Shannon looked at him, drew in a long deep breath, and spoke in a thin reedy voice, the voice of a patient recovering from throat surgery. The voice of someone in his seventies. “To save the world from her.”

  CHAPTER III

  “T O SAVE THE WORLD FROM HER,” repeated Gottlieb.

  His first reaction: He went into a psychotic depression when his wife died and somehow turned his daughter into the Antichrist. He’s off his rocker. Probably thinks that his wife was the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary, and the Holy Ghost lived in his microwave.

  But Gottlieb’s face betrayed none of this. Through the years, he’d learned to keep his reactions under wraps. He’d also learned to treat his first impressions with a healthy skepticism.

  “I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” said Shannon. “No one would. No one could.”

  “Let me try.”

  His patient lapsed into another silence, but Gottlieb pressed on, gently but firmly. “What kind of danger do you think she posed to the world? How do you know she was so dangerous?” He took a step towards the desk and lay a hand on the Bible. “Were you receiving some kind of unusual messages? Did God tell you Himself?”

  “God doesn’t talk to me directly. I wish He did.” Shannon leaned towards him. “You think I’m crazy, don’t you.” Not so much a question as a statement of fact.

  “I don’t know you well enough to have an opinion about your mental state.”

  “I’m not.” His voice was slightly stronger now. “I don’t hear voices. I don’t have visions. I don’t think people are out to get me, except for the ones who want to lynch me because of what I did to Christina.”

  “Would you like to talk in my office? It’s more comfortable than here.” Maybe he’ll be more forthcoming if I get him out of

  this dungeon.

  “All right.”

  Gottlieb escorted him down a long bleak corridor, past the hostile eyes of other patients, past a pair of locked doors. Shannon regarded the office with a measure of interest as he took in the bookcase, the posters, the potted plants. He studied the photos on the desk, seeming to take particular interest in Gottlieb’s daughter. “Your family?”

  Gottlieb nodded, waiting for further questions. None came. He signaled his patient to sit down and tried to pick up where they’d left off. “Your daughter. . . can you tell me more about her?”

  He shook his head. “I suppose I will eventually, but not yet.”

  “Then tell me about yourself.”

  “Not a lot to tell. You may not believe this, but I’m the most ordinary man in the world.” Long pauses broke up his sentences, as though each one required Herculean effort.

  “Go on.”

  “Where do you want me to start?”

  “Wherever you want.”

  He sighed. “I grew up in Chicago, the far North Side, near the Evanston line. One older brother and sister, one younger brother. My father was a firefighter. My younger brother is one too. My older brother is an optometrist. My sister’s a secretary for two accountants.” He sounded apologetic for having to provide such boring details.

  “What were things like at home?”

  “No complaints. Our parents were good people. Didn’t gush all over you with their emotions. I guess not many Irish parents do. But they worked hard, they provided for us. They were there if we needed them.”

  “Are they living?”

  He shook his head. “That’s the only blessing, that they died

  before all this happened.”

  “Were they devout?”

  “To the marrow of their bones. It wasn’t just that they went

  to Mass and took the sacraments. They believed. I’d be surprised if they ever had the smallest doubts about the Church.”

  “And you?” Gottlieb asked him.

  “I’ve had my share of doubts. Especially these last few years. But in the balance, I’m still a believer. I believe in God and the Holy Trinity . . . God as the absolute good. I also believe there’s such a thing as absolute evil.” His glance turned to one of Gottlieb’s small windows, and he fell back into the well of his own silence.

  CHAPTER IV

  G OTTLIEB, DISTRACTED AND VAGUELY UNSETTLED, stirred a container of strawberry yogurt in the GCFI canteen. A dull buzz of conversation filled the room, counterpoint to the low rumble of distant traffic. He’d just concluded his fourth meeting with James Shannon.

  Dwight and Norma sat across from him. “So, whatcha think, Doc?” Dwight asked between bites of a ham sandwich.

  “I’m not sure. It’s hard to get a handle on him.”

  Norma washed down a forkful of pasta salad with the last of her diet Pepsi. “Is he crazy?”

  “I don’t think so, initial gut reactions to the contrary. If he is, he keeps a very tight lid on it.”

  “Maybe he’s just smart enough to hide it. Just smart enough to know what sounds real crazy to the rest of us.” Dwight chomped noisily on a potato chip. “Well, how ’bout a full-blown psychotic depression?”

  “Still the main contender, I suppose, but I’m not too happy with that one either. Grief is one thing. Major depression is something else. Considering what’s happened and what he’s facing, you could argue that he’s entitled to more depression than he’s showing.”

  “How ’bout drugs and alcohol?” the nurse asked.

  “For what it’s worth,” replied Gottlieb, “their initial drug screen came back negative. He denies using any kind of drugs, prescription or otherwise. The cops checked his medicine cabinet, fo
und nothing more exciting than Maalox and extra-strength Tylenol. We can’t be sure about how much he drinks, but he says a six-pack lasts him a couple of months.”

  Dwight rolled his eyes. “And we know folks don’t tell lies

  ‘bout their drinkin’. Especially Irishmen.”

  “He’s not the type,” opined Norma.

  “Meanin’ what? Meanin’ he’s a nice whitebread homeowner instead of a brother, so he can’t be no junkie or juicer?” Standard banter between Dwight and her, lacking bite.

  Ignoring him, she turned to Gottlieb. “How about a physical illness? Some kind of seizure disorder, say?”

  “No memory gaps, no déjà vu or jamais vu, no auras. No indication of altered consciousness. No signs of any physical ailment, but let’s see what the blood work tells us. That reminds me, I want to order a neuro consult.”

  “Which means he’s gonna get the works. EEG, CT-scan, MRI, the whole nine yards,” said Dwight. “Wonder what that mo’-fo’ gonna cost us before we’re done with him.”

  “Why don’t we just give him a lethal injection here and now?” Norma bristled. “We could do it today, after two o’clock meds. Think of what we’d save the state by doing that!”

  “Well, it’s a real nice thought.” Dwight turned serious. “Now here’s what I’m thinkin’. Ever since his old lady died, he’s gettin’ lonelier and hornier. One night he’s feelin’ worse than usual, he has a few more beers than usual, maybe a shot or two of hard stuff, too, and he bangs her. And lo’ and behold, he finds out he likes it! Gets to be a habit. But somewhere along the line she gets sick of it, tells him she’s gonna blow the whistle on him. All that good old Irish Catholic guilt catches up with him, and not only that, he’s scared shitless. He’s been in bad shape all along, but now the fear and guilt put him over the edge. So he kills her.”

  Gottlieb shrugged. “I suppose it’s as credible as any other theory.”