The Reality Conspiracy (5 page)

A Catholic priest . . . ?

When she saw that the book was inscribed to Dr. Gudhausen, she realized she was trembling.
Oh my goodness
, she thought,
what am I getting myself into?

J
effrey Chandler pressed the seven-digit number sequence on the telephone. He waited till he heard a single ring, then punched in his access code. The line remained dead. No messages. He disconnected, then hit the redial button. This time he let it ring four times. His own voice answered, "Hi, this is Jeff. Please leave a message of any duration right after the double beep."

Beep-beep.

"Casey? Hi, babe. I'm just calling to let you know I won't be home for dinner. Sorry, hon. Don't wait on me, okay? You go ahead and eat. I'll grab something down here. I've got . . . well. I've got some things to take care of . . . work-related stuff, you know? I'll try not to be late. Love you. Bye."

"D
r. Bradley, how very good to meet you! I must confess I've been wondering about the mysterious woman behind so . . . enticing a letter."

Seeing Dr. Gudhausen again after more than a year, Karen was reminded of how poorly his name matched his appearance. Gudhausen: the name suggested some laid-back, balding Freudian with horn-rimmed glasses and a pencil-sharp goatee. Instead, Stanley Gudhausen looked like anything but a psychiatrist: a dock worker, maybe, a bartender? Perhaps a retired catcher from a baseball team? Mostly, Karen decided, he looked just like the stereotypical Irish cop. His thick silver hair needed combing; his beefy, florid-cheeked face crowded sharp blue eyes into wrinkly little crevasses where they twinkled mischievously. One shirttail had escaped his belt, emphasizing what may well have been an ample beer belly. He had a tooth-pocked Bic pen behind his ear, and looked as if he should be wearing a police revolver in his belt.

"Y-yes, Dr. Gudhausen, thank you for seeing me."

"For seeing you! Why, the pleasure's all mine. Let me congratulate you on an effectively cryptic letter. My curiosity has been aroused ever since I got it."

"Oh, I can write a mean letter. It's the interpersonal stuff that slows me down."

"Nervous about seeing me? Come on now. You're not in school anymore, Doctor. You and I are colleagues, professionals, kith and kin and all that, for heaven's sake. Please, relax, Dr. Bradley, come in and sit down."

As he led her into what must have been his consulting room, Karen was surprised when she didn't see a desk. Instead, two comfortable-looking leather chairs faced a brick fireplace, two more stood on either side of an antique table. Nearby, beneath a framed mirror, there was a six-foot couch. Cheerful artwork was everywhere.

"Let's sit by the fire," said Dr. Gudhausen, with a wink and a wave of the hand. "Oh! And may I get you something to drink? Some tea? Or better, some white wine? I can even offer you a beer."

"Oh, no. No thank you. Nothing." Karen sat down, looking at the dark fireplace. Gudhausen crossed the room and pressed a hidden button on the corner of the mantel. Logs appeared. Sparks jumped up among them. By the time he took his seat next to her, the fireplace was burning merrily.

Karen discovered she was smiling. "I've never seen anything like that."

"It's an illusion, my dear. A hologram. No need of a fire this time of year. But it's relaxing. The fire has a calming effect, don't you agree."

"I'll let you know."

"What's all this? Nervous around an old man with a boy's taste for gadgets? Honestly, Dr. Bradley."

"Please call me Karen." Smiling, she took a deep, calming breath—in, one-two-three; out, one-two-three——it was a relaxation technique she had suggested to many of her patients. She hoped it would work for her.

Karen squared her shoulders.
Here goes nothing
, she thought. This was the moment of truth. Hoping not to make a fool of herself, she began, "Dr. Gudhausen, last year I attended your lecture on Multiple Personality Disorder at the conference in Toronto. Back then . . . at that time . . . well, I was just starting out, I hadn't had any hands-on experience with that particular disorder, and . . . and . . ."

"And now you have," he finished the sentence for her.

She looked him in the eyes. "Yes, now I have."

He leaned back, lifted a foot off the carpet, took his knee in his hands. "I remember my first time," he said. "There was nothing—I should say not much of anything—in the literature back then. The disorder was still hovering somewhere between witchcraft and scientific respectability. No one knew how to diagnose it. Many thought the whole thing was a sham, didn't believe it existed. And many still don't, I might add, parenthetically. In fact, back then we didn't call it MPD. Different therapists had different names for it. I recall how . . . startled . . . I was. I'd never seen anything quite like it. It was—what would be a good word?—eerie?"

Karen nodded. "Eerie is a perfect word."

"But you've come all the way from Burlington, Vermont, to tell me about your patient, haven't you? You didn't come to endure one of my interminable history lessons."

"Oh, but I did. At the conference you showed us a videotape of"—Karen looked at her notes—"a Mr. Herbert Gold."

"Yes, of course, Herb Gold. He's an automobile mechanic from Andover, just a few miles north of here. A good man, solid, a salt-of-the-earth type. Before he discontinued therapy we had identified at least six separate and distinct personalities."

"I remember. Some male, some female. One was just a little kid, as I recall."

"Right, little Betsy Bottom, she called herself."

"One of the things I remember, Dr. Gudhausen, is that you had tested several—maybe all—of the personalities. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you say that the IQ tests you administered showed one personality to be a dull-normal, and another to test around 160? That's genius!"

"Yes, exactly. That particular pattern, though not unusual among multiples, continues to fascinate me. Whatever the test score, high or low, they all come from the same brain."

"Dr. Gudhausen, I still have the photos of Mr. Gold that you handed out. It's—I hope this doesn't sound unprofessional—but it's just plain weird the way his face, the actual features of his face, seems to change so very much."

"Weird? Yes it is." He chuckled, sat back in his chair, and smiled at her. "I used to call that phenomenon 'personation,' meaning to temporarily take on another person's physical characteristics, habits, symptoms of illness, whatever. It's a term, I'm embarrassed to admit, I borrowed from turn-of-the-century spiritualists. A decision I soon regretted. It should be my job to demystify this vastly misunderstood illness. I should be the last one to drive it further in the direction of demon possession, returns from the dead, and all the other claptrap and high-weirdness."

Karen passed the photocopied page to Dr. Gudhausen. It showed five full-face photographs of Herbert Gold, each very different from the one beside it. They were labeled Homely Herbert, Betsy Bottom, Sasha, Thornton, and—

"This is the one that interests me, Dr. Gudhausen." She pointed at a scowling face that looked darker and far more ugly than the rest.

"Ah yes, that's Mr. Splitfoot. He was always a bit of a mystery. Very bright. Very cagey. Totally sociopathic, as far as I could tell. When he was 'onstage'— that was the term used by all Gold's personalities. The displayed personality was 'onstage,' the rest were 'backstage.' I recall how difficult it was to get Mr. Splitfoot onstage. He liked to hide in the wings, I suppose you could say. But when he was out he was evasive, insulting, and downright mean, just as you saw him on the videotape."

"Yes. I remember. He was horrible, abusive. A hard one to forget."

"I suspect Mr. Splitfoot was Herbert Gold's raw libido, his carnal self, the sociopathic side that Gold himself couldn't tolerate, wouldn't even admit to." Gudhausen stared at the photograph and chuckled. "An ugly brute, isn't he?"

"Yes, ugly," Karen said absently. She looked—perhaps for the hundredth time—at the photograph of smiling, gap-toothed, crew-cut Herbert Gold. His good-natured face reminded her of Uncle Benny, who used to drive a milk truck and who would come to the farm almost every Sunday for dinner.

Below Gold's grinning portrait, she saw the same face, twisted into the sneering countenance known as Mr. Splitfoot. It was the "Hyde" part of Gold's "Dr. Jekyll." Here the normally cherubic eyes were narrowed so much they appeared as black horizontal slits beneath his furrowed forehead. The muscle tension of Mr. Splitfoot's jaw stretched Gold's fleshy cheeks far too tightly over his cheekbones. The jutting jaw made his chin oddly shaped, almost pointed. The mouth stretched too widely, exposing long teeth and a grossly protruding tongue.

At this point Karen knew she had tiptoed to the end of the diving board and was about to take the plunge. She cleared her throat.
Here goes
, she thought, determined not to apologize for anything she was about to say, no matter how far out it might sound. "Dr. Gudhausen, if I may, I'd like to talk about my patient now."

"Of course, Doctor. Yes. Please, take your time."

He assumed a practiced listening posture, professional attending behavior that on Gudhausen looked perfectly natural, totally sincere.

Karen reached into her briefcase and removed a videotape. "Do you have a player, Doctor?"

"It just so happens . . ." said Dr. Gudhausen, pushing against the arms of the chair to assist himself to his feet. He took the cassette from Karen and pressed another button on the mantel of the fireplace. A landscape painting rose in its frame like a theater curtain, exposing the television screen beneath it. Gudhausen pushed the tape into a hinged slot below the screen. He handed Karen a remote control.

"Hit PLAY when you're ready," he said and he took a seat beside her.

Karen pressed the button; a picture filled the TV screen. It showed a young girl slouched in a recliner. She wore jeans and a plaid blouse. With eyes closed and body relaxed, she appeared to be sleeping. Karen was aware of the washed-out quality of this third-generation video image. Too little light, subject poorly centered, background dark, almost invisible.

"This is my office," she explained, perhaps unnecessarily. Karen gave a little start when she heard her own voice coming from the hidden speaker. "This is a portion of a recorded interview with Lucine Washburn, known as Lucy. She is twelve years of age, the daughter of Ed and Winona Washburn of St. Albans, Vermont. She has a younger brother, Randy.

"This excerpt is taken from a videotaping of our seventh session together. The recording was made with the permission of the child and with the consent of both parents. In the previous two sessions, using hypnosis, I have leaned toward a diagnosis of MPD. However, I note for the record that the Washburns seem to be a close, happy, well-functioning family. I can detect no evidence of the parental abuse patterns that are almost invariably present in cases of MPD."

"Hmmmm," said Dr. Gudhausen.

Karen's taped voice continued. "Today's session is an attempt to record those personalities which have so far made themselves known to me."

Karen hit the PAUSE button and said to Dr. Gudhausen, "She has been in the trance for about thirty minutes at this point. She has been resistant to showing her other alters."

"Yes, of course, please go on." He was leaning forward in his chair, watching the screen with great concentration.

Karen tapped the PLAY button and the girl began to squirm in the chair. On the tape's soundtrack, Karen's voice said: "Okay, Lucy, are you ready, sweetie?"

"Mmmm. No. Afraid."

"There's no reason to be afraid, hon. You're safe here. Your mom and dad are right in the next room, and I'm right here with you. No one can hurt you. There's nothing to be afraid of. I just want to take your picture, okay?"

"He doesn't want it."

"Who doesn't want it, Lucy? P-Man? Is it P-Man who doesn't want it?"

"No. Mmmm. P-Man's asleep."

"Is everyone asleep now?"

"Yes, except not . . ."

"Except who, Lucy?"

"Except . . . except me."

"Can I talk to P-Man now?"

"No. Asleep."

"Is Noonie awake? Can I talk to Noonie?"

The little girl squirmed in the recliner. She balled up her fists, brought them to her closed eyes. Vigorously, she rubbed her eyes and yawned deeply.

From off-camera Karen's voice said, "Is that Noonie waking up? Now can I talk to Noonie?"

Lucy said, "No, no. Noonie's not asleep, Noonie's"—here Lucy's voice lowered; it sounded flat and deep—"Noonie's not asleep. Noonie's dead." The child smirked and giggled. Spit sprayed from her pursed lips.

Karen heard the discomfort, the startled reaction in her own recorded voice. The tape would always remind her how she had lost her composure.
This is where it all started to go bad
, she thought, fighting the impulse to stop the tape and offer excuses to Dr. Gudhausen. Yet, she couldn't help tensing, gripping the leather arm of the chair, knowing the worst was still to come.

She whispered to Dr. Gudhausen, "I' had never heard that deep voice before."