Dante's Dilemma (31 page)

Rachel continued to pretend confusion. “I don't understand.”

“It won't change anything, but it would ease my conscience to know why an innocent woman has been taking the blame for her husband's death.”

“‘Innocent'? What are you talking about?”

“I'm talking about the fact that you didn't murder your husband. And that you did everything possible to make yourself look guilty.”

Rachel grew heated. “That's a lie. It's all there in the record. I killed Gunther because I hated him. I'd do it again if I had the chance. I killed him and then I sliced him to bits so that the whole world would know how he treated me.”

“So not because you were in some kind of PTSD-induced trance?”

Rachel realized her error and rushed to cover it. “I don't know. It was all so confusing. I really don't remember what happened. I—”

Hallie cut her off with a sigh to indicate she wasn't buying it. The psychiatrist in me approved. Though it might seem cruel, Rachel had lied before and would continue the charade until someone called her on it.

Hallie fell silent then, and so did Rachel. I tried to picture the looks on their faces: Hallie's filled with determination, and Rachel's reflecting . . . what? Surprise? Fear? Calculation? A combination of the three?

When at last Rachel spoke again, it was to take the offensive. “You have no right to be angry with me.”

“I'm not angry with you,” Hallie replied in a still evenhanded tone. “I'm angry at a system that failed to protect you, at police officers who looked the other way, at a society that implicitly—if not openly—allows violence against women and children to go unpunished. I'm angry at a lot of things. But not at you.”

“But you still want to know why.”

“If you're willing to tell us.”

“I can't think of a reason why I should.”

I couldn't help stepping in. “Really? I think we just met her outside.”

Rachel laughed bitterly. “So that's why you're here. To help my daughter. You won't mind me saying that's rich.”

Any number of bromides entered my head. None of them even began to deal with Rachel's predicament—a predicament no parent should ever have to face. There was only one thing I could think of that might get her talking.

I turned to Hallie. “Let's go. We're wasting our time. She's already told us what we came here to find out.” I picked up my cane from the table. Hallie grasped what I was doing and made motions to leave also.

“No. Wait. What are you going to do?” Rachel hissed as fiercely as a lioness sensing a threat to her cub.

“Nothing,” I said. “Except try to get Olivia into treatment. It would be helpful if I could pass on all the facts to a qualified therapist. But if I can't get them here . . .”

“Passive aggression,” Rachel said with a sneer in her voice. “Is that what they teach you psychiatrists in medical school?”

“Happily, no,” I said. “A few of us are even competent to spot potential suicides. What you're hiding from us won't save Olivia. In the end, it will destroy her.”

“So you say. But how do I know you won't go to the police?”

“Because I'm still your lawyer,” Hallie injected, sensing as I did that the tide was beginning to turn in our favor. “Anything you say to me stays inside this room. For as long as you instruct me to keep it secret.”

“That's all well and good. But what about him?”

“I'm also bound by an oath. To do no harm.”

“That's not good enough,” Rachel said, “I want you to swear it.”

Despite a world of misgivings, I gave her my solemn promise.

Gradually over the course of the next hour, the unexpurgated story of the Westlake marriage came out. Most of it wasn't new information. I'd heard it on the tapes of Brad's sessions and in my own two-hour interview before the trial. What had changed was the way Rachel told it. Gone was the defeated attitude, the languid air of a weak and indifferent victim. In their place was anger of the purest kind, though not all of it directed at Rachel's husband.

“I wasn't lying when I said I deserve to be punished. I did everything to myself. What I can't forgive is exposing what I love the most. I should have left Gunther when she was young. As bad as he was, I thought he wouldn't touch a child, even one he hated as much as Olivia.”

This was a completely foreign concept for Hallie. “He hated his own daughter? Why?”

“Partly for being a girl instead of the son he wanted. Partly because she wasn't like him. Stupid, he used to call her. And deformed.”

“Because of her hand?” I said.

“Yes. He called it her mark of shame, as though it was her fault she wasn't perfect.”

I couldn't help thinking of my own imperfection. “A man of his intelligence should have known it was nothing to be ashamed of. It's just a genetic mutation. And one that can be surgically corrected in infancy. Why didn't you have the extra finger removed?”

“Gunther refused to consent or pay for the surgery. I should have overridden the decision, taken her to the hospital myself. But by that time, I was a virtual prisoner in my own home. I had nowhere to go, no one to turn to. Everything I told you about my mother was true. She wouldn't have lifted a finger to help us and I had no other family. Gunther kept me on a tight financial leash. I had a monthly allowance for food and clothing, but no credit cards, and he set up our bank account so that withdrawals could only be made jointly. I didn't even have my own checkbook. It was exactly as you said at my trial. I was too ashamed to let the world know what I had gotten myself into. Me, a former PhD student, trapped like some concubine in a harem. And I was worried what he would do to retaliate if I ever tried to leave him. He used to threaten me with it. ‘Do you think you're hurting now?' he used to say. ‘Wait and see what happens when you lose custody of her.' As long as he kept his hands off Olivia, I thought I could put up with anything.”

“But that changed at some point?”

“When Olivia got to high school. She was a good student, very intelligent like her father, but also shy and withdrawn. Several of her teachers mentioned to me at conferences that they were concerned about depression. Then, during her third year, one of them called me in for a special meeting and showed me a poem she had written for a class assignment. It was . . . very disturbing. In it she expressed a wish to die.”

“Do you still have the poem?”

“No, I burned it. Along with the journals I found when I searched her bedroom. Apparently she'd been doing this for several years, spinning fantasies of how she would kill herself and the suicide note she would leave, blaming Gunther.”

A lot was starting to make sense. “Did you confront her?”

“Not confront. I took her aside one day while Gunther was away on a speaking trip and asked her what it was all about. She gave me a desperate look and said it was nothing. That it was all her fault anyway. That's when I realized just how much I had failed her by staying with him.”

“But you didn't go to the authorities?”

“I'm not that stupid. I knew the ordeal Olivia would be put through if either of us even breathed the word
rape
. The lawyers Gunther would bring down on us, how he'd accuse her—and me—of fabrication and mental illness. It was just the kind of no-holds-barred attack Gunther relished. He would have said there was no proof, and he'd be right because I vowed then and there that it would never happen again. For the next year and a half, until Olivia turned eighteen, I made sure they were never alone together, even for a minute. That's when I moved out. Olivia was about to start her first year at the college and would be living in the dormitory. I thought we'd both be safe. The only mistake I made was in not filing for a legal separation beforehand.”

The comment jarred a memory of the memorandum I had come across in Brad's files at the beginning of the case. What was it Rachel's divorce lawyer had said?

Hallie understood immediately. “Without a formal order, Gunther still had control of your assets.”

“That's right. But even worse, I found out that unless he consented, I would have to wait two years for a divorce. That's the real reason I went to the house that night. To beg Gunther to set me free. When I got there and I saw . . .” Rachel seemed to have difficulty going on.

“Why don't we go back a few steps,” Hallie said gently. “To when Olivia dislocated her shoulder.”

“You know about that?”

“Yes, Amanda Pearson told us about it. How she reported it to you and you acted like it was Olivia's boyfriend. But it wasn't a boyfriend, was it?”

Rachel's breathing became ragged, like she was running a race. “As Olivia told it to me, she'd been lunching with a friend at Morrie's Deli. The friend had to leave to get to class, and since it was a beautiful day, Olivia decided to take the long way back to campus, along the path behind the Science and Industry Museum. She hadn't gone very far when she saw Gunther out walking too, about twenty yards ahead of her, and as usual with a scowl on his face. Olivia turned around, but not before Gunther had seen her. He caught up with her near one of the lagoons and demanded to have a word. Except for the two of them, the area was deserted. Olivia said she had nothing to say to him. He said, ‘You little mongrel bitch. I know what you want and you're not going to get it.' Gunther grabbed her by arm. Olivia said he pulled it so hard she thought she would faint. But she managed to twist away and run, all the way to the Metra underpass at Fifty-Seventh Street, where there's a coffee shop popular with the students. Gunther didn't dare follow her in and continue what he'd started. Olivia managed to get back to her dorm safely, and spent the night in unbearable pain. Later, I chastised her for not phoning me. She said she was afraid of what I might do.”

So both mother and daughter feared how the other would act if pushed to the brink.

“I wanted to report the incident to my lawyer, but Olivia said we shouldn't. That she had friends watching out for her now and would take extra steps to be careful. The important thing was staying out of his way until the divorce was finalized. Then we could both move to another part of the country and start a new life. But I didn't trust Gunther. Except for the assault on Olivia, he was being too quiet. I knew he had something planned.”

“Like what?” Hallie asked.

“I don't know, but I was afraid for my safety. I asked my divorce lawyer what would happen if one of us died before the divorce came through, and she confirmed that Gunther would get everything. I thought if I could just get a final settlement, I could pay for Olivia to finish college at another school, a good school that I couldn't afford on my salary. I went back and forth about what to do, until there didn't seem to be any other choice. I had to go there and plead with him. Still, I procrastinated until Mother's Day weekend. Olivia and I were planning to go to brunch to celebrate, and I thought how wonderful it would be if I could tell her.

“When I walked in the door, I knew right away something was wrong. Gunther always hummed to himself while he read or worked, or had classical music playing. But the house was deathly quiet, and the carpet in the foyer was at wrong angles. Gunther always straightened it when he went by. He couldn't stand disorder of any kind. I pushed it back into place with my foot and stepped into the living room. That's when I saw him, propped up on the floor by the fireplace. At first, he didn't look dead, only dazed and expressionless. But as I got closer, I could see the blood on his forehead and his legs splayed out like a puppet's. That's when I realized he was gone.”

“What time was this?” Hallie asked, barely above a whisper. It's one thing to imagine violent death. It's quite another to hear it in the tenor of another's voice.

“Ten, I think. I waited until later in the evening to come because I was expecting a fight and didn't want the neighbors to hear us at it again. It looked like Gunther had been reading the paper and drinking a scotch before it happened. The glass and the bottle were on a side table, and the papers thrown all over the floor. The glass was still half full. The first thing I thought was how upset Gunther would be if the police saw him like that, looking so silly and with the room all in a mess. So I started straightening up, the way I always did when I used to live there, like a good little housewife. Like I was in a dream. I put the bottle back in the sideboard and brought the glass back to the kitchen to wash it. I scrubbed and scrubbed it with a washrag until it was clean. It was just as I was crossing the room to put it away that I saw them.”

“Saw what?” Hallie said in the same hushed tone.

“Olivia's keys to the house. They were lying on the floor, by the door to the backyard, attached to a key ring I had given her as a present. It had a little gold charm attached to it with her initials on it. O.W.W. Olivia Winona Westlake. I picked them up and realized they were covered in blood. That's when I knew.”