HER PERFECT SECRET a totally gripping psychological thriller Page 5

  I met Paul at the New School in Manhattan. He was so easygoing and unassuming I thought it had to be an act. For the first six months that we dated, I was on pins and needles, waiting for the façade to drop and Paul to pick up a bottle — to start talking with his fists.

  But he never did.

  Paul’s easiness didn’t convince me of what it should have — that not all men are horrible. Instead, the incongruence had a different effect. Paul made my father seem worse than he already was. The more men I encountered who were less afflicted and temperamental, the more they seemed like anomalies.

  I didn’t know where to put that. I didn’t know how to deal with it, so I rejected Paul. One night, a time I’ll never forget, he stood outside my apartment in the pouring rain. Just like in the movies. And he pleaded with me, water running down his thin face, his eyelids fluttering. He begged me to reconsider. Whatever he’d done wrong, he said, he’d fix it.

  His behavior turned something in me cold and furious. Seeing him like that, I suddenly judged him as weak. As pathetic. I didn’t want anything to do with a man like that. I needed someone strong, like my father. And to show my own strength, I lashed out. I hit Paul. The one and only time I’d hit another adult human being.

  Shocked, bewildered, Paul stumbled back. Blood from the corner of his mouth mixed with rainwater and coursed down his jaw and dripped. He touched the blood, looked at it, looked at me, and left.

  That night, alone in my apartment with the rain slamming down, I contemplated my life’s worth. What had I done? I was becoming my father. Violent and obsessed with vigilance.

  Somewhere near the end of my purgatory, I got a phone call. It was my mother. My father had suffered a major heart attack in the night and died.

  The timing, it seemed, was auspicious. Here I was going through this painful realization — a kind of metamorphosis — that I had to grow out of my father’s influence. And in the midst of that, he had departed.

  It sent me into a deeper spiral. I raided my roommate’s drug stash and took everything I could find. If it was a pill, I swallowed it. But it wasn’t enough.

  I spent the next few days struggling on the fringes of a private hell, sneaking out to take drugs and carouse the city in an addled haze. I wanted to die. Somehow, though, I stayed alive. I skirted the edge but never went beyond it. And then a friend gave me the name of a trusted therapist.

  Sarah was in her fifties, as I am now. She kept her hair natural and it had a lovely silver sheen. She wore simple earrings, two sterling silver hoops, and dressed in elegant, comfortable, earthy clothes. Her office always smelled like jasmine, and she had a therapeutic bag of tricks that worked wonders. Progression, regression, EMDR — you name it, she did it. Through her, I was able to get myself under control and start living my life again.

  I visited Sarah once a week for eight months, and then twice a month for about a year after that, gradually reducing it to an as-needed basis. By the time Paul and I were married, I was already considering my own practice. I wanted to help people the way Sarah had helped me. My practice would span from young to old. I would become adept at guiding my patients as they hunted down their traumas and their shames. To get at the roots of their guilty feelings, their anxiety, and often, depression.

  Not everyone could trace back their mental discomfiture to some inciting incident, however. I know this. Maggie Lewis had been abused at a young age. That trauma had gone undigested for over a decade. When I first began to see her, she was just twenty-one and had already been on anti-depressants for five years. She wanted out. She said that they ruined her creativity — she was a dancer, and her meds wreaked havoc on her motivation, body, and form.

  In order to help her, I knew we needed to get to the trauma of her abuse. We had to do it slowly and carefully. I could only gently guide her — she had to confront it when she was ready.

  But we never quite got there.

  I tell as much to Sergeant Rhames once I arrive in Westchester and am sitting across from him and another plainclothes officer at the White Plains Police Department.

  “And you can’t discuss the . . . nature of the abuse with us?” the plainclothes cop asks.

  “Not in any detail. Not other than what I’ve already stated.”

  The plainclothes cop, an investigator, taps a pen against his lip. “But you’re pretty sure that’s what drove her to do it. To commit suicide.”

  “We say ‘complete a suicide.’”

  He lowers the pen. “Come again?”

  “In the mental health field, suicide is part of the diseases of despair. Alcoholism, drug addiction, suicidal ideation. It’s a physical health condition. We don’t ‘commit’ a heart attack. Saying it associates blame, like committing a crime or a sin. The stigma can deter people from coming forward who are contemplating suicide. And also, a person may attempt a suicide, but they may not complete it.”

  The investigator gives Sergeant Rhames a long look, like, Are you hearing this?

  Rhames is thoughtful, though. “And you said you’re pretty sure she wasn’t contemplating . . . ah, attempting or completing a suicide.”

  “In our discussions, no.”

  “But you could see how she might. The stresses she was under.”

  “If you’re wondering what to tell the family, it’s this: Maggie Lewis was an incredibly brave woman. She was fighting to overcome something almost insurmountable. At the same time, she was trying to live her life to her fullest potential. To be an artist, to dance.”

  Rhames is taking notes.

  “She was fighting a disease of despair not of her own making. She didn’t ask for her circumstances. But she was doing everything in her power to overcome them. Sometimes we don’t make it. But that’s not the important part. What’s important is how hard we try.”

  The investigator has his mouth hanging half-open. He suddenly becomes aware of this, closes it and sits up straighter. Rhames finishes his notes, stands, and reaches his hand across the table. “Dr. Lindman, thank you so much.”

  I shake with him as the investigator stands and offers his own hand. “Yeah, er, ah, if there’s anything else, I’ll be in touch.”

  I’m sure.

  I leave and head straight for my next destination. Maggie’s funeral won’t be for a couple of days. If I attend, it will be just by slipping into the back of the church during the service. But I won’t go to the wake or burial or mingle at any reception afterwards. To me, that’s unprofessional.

  Not that what I’m about to do is incredibly high up there on the list of ethical standards. But making a few discreet phone calls to get a little background on my daughter’s fiancé, that’s understandable, isn’t it? Especially if I suspect he’s a former patient who witnessed one parent kill another?

  Any mother would do the same.

  Right?

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  White Plains is a medium-sized city in the center of Westchester County, just north of New York City. My office shares the third floor of a five-story building with two other offices: a dentist and a realtor. The building is dark, everyone gone home to start the weekend.

  The door from the corridor opens onto the room where Mena typically receives my clients, helps with billing, and attends to other administrative duties.

  I move through to my office, which fronts Mamaroneck Avenue below. For some reason, I keep the lights off. It’s as if I don’t want anyone to know I’m here. As if somehow they’ll see through to the duplicity.

  I’m supposed to be here for Maggie Lewis, but right now, I don’t have time to go through two years of notes. And the real reason I’m here, anyway, is the Bishop case.

  I sit down hard in my desk chair, the guilt weighting me.

  I’m sorry, Maggie . . .

  Tears prick the backs of my eyes. I wasn’t expecting this, but being in the office has opened me up. I let the emotion wash through me and run its course.

  The space is simply arranged: my desk and chair to one side, a
pair of facing chairs to the other, and one couch against the back wall. Most patients prefer the chair. Maggie liked the couch — she sat just feet away from where I am now, and not long ago.

  I’m so sorry, honey . . .

  Maggie was a smoker, and while I didn’t allow smoking in my office, I’d let her hold a cigarette. She’d wedge it between her fingers as she talked and waved her hands. When I’d seen her this last time, I’d thought maybe she was cloaking some feelings about her son. She’d left when he was a baby. Instead of being given up for adoption, he’d stayed with the father and the father’s family, who helped raise the boy. Maggie never resumed a motherly role. He was now five, and she’d described him almost casually, as if she saw him much more often. How big he was, what he was like.

  But never once did Maggie indicate a plan for suicide. It wasn’t anywhere on my radar. I’m sure of it. Over the years, I’ve learned to separate signal from noise with patients, and her signal was clear to me: she was safe from self-harm.

  So then — what had I missed?

  The answer: I don’t know. Maybe nothing. Therapists aren’t omniscient. We’re certainly not omnipresent; I was in Maggie’s life roughly once a month for two years. I have to let it go. I have to get down to what I’m here for.

  I wipe the drying tears from my face and return to Mena’s room. In the back is a small walk-in closet, choked with file cabinets and boxes. It’s hot in there, no windows and no AC, and smells like paper and mildew. It takes me a few minutes to move things around, dig out the box from fifteen years ago.

  I take it to my office and start finger-walking through the file tabs until I find it — Bishop.

  My official evaluation isn’t here, nor are records of Tom Bishop’s final statement to police, because they’ve been sealed by a judge, so I’m not expecting those. But I’ve got five sessions annotated and accounted for. And I’ve got a list of collaterals, meaning other people in Tom’s life. The Bleekers are there.

  I’m not sure whether to be glad or worried about that.

  Seated back at my desk, I dial the number. The other end rings.

  And rings, and rings. No voicemail or answering machine, just an endless ringing.

  I hang up, check that I’ve got the right number, and try again.

  While I’m listening through the second round, my gaze falls on the file.

  There’s an address.

  It looks like my road trip will extend a bit farther.

  * * *

  It starts to rain as I drive out to Long Island. Paul has checked in with me twice via text: Everything all right? And later, Things still good?

  I have to dial up my wipers as the rain comes harder. Driving out to Long Island is always an adventure. As the name suggests, it’s one long island, but there always seem to be a million lane changes and highway switches to get to any one destination from Westchester. It’s already going on seven p.m. — getting late to be showing up at someone’s door. And I have no idea what awaits. Will Arnold Bleeker remember me from the courtroom? Will he tell me that a grown-up Tom lives on the other side of the world somewhere? Or that he’s maybe living happily nearby with a couple of kids and wife who bakes and sews?

  The drive takes over an hour, plenty of time for me to cycle through a dozen scenarios and rehearse what I’m going to say when I get — I hope — the reasoned answer I’m seeking. The GPS guides me to the small seaside town of Sayville, then through a residential neighborhood. The homes are charming, simple two-story structures at first, but become more expansive as I near the water. Greene Ave comes to an end at the water’s edge: the Atlantic Ocean. I know I’m facing south, and somewhere in the distance is Fire Island, known for its wild summer parties. But now, in the overcast and rain twilight, the sea is rough; frothy and dark.

  I don’t move, letting the rain drum on the car.

  The house is large but quaint. The main structure has a gambrel roof, like a barn’s. It’s a common style in the region, arguably made famous by the movie Amityville Horror. In the daylight, the siding might be a dusty blue. A good color for a beach home, which the house tries to be, despite its multiple additions and two-car garage.

  The windows are dark. Not a good sign. The Bleekers are not much older than I am, but some people like to go to bed early.

  It’s now or never. I leave the car and lock it up. I’m almost instantly soaked as I cut across the lawn and up the short steps to the small porch framing the entryway. There’s a doorbell, but I decide to knock first. I strain to listen, hearing nothing but the pounding surf to my left, the rain hitting the roof above me.

  This is crazy.

  What in God’s name are you doing here?

  I knock again and wait. No reaction. Not a light that’s come on, nor the vibration of movement. Just the rhythmic white noise of the ocean . . .

  I want my mommy back . . .

  My heart skips a beat and my breath trembles. I know what I’ve just heard is a memory of the strange message on my phone — or a memory of the voice I thought I heard in the message on my phone. But it takes me a moment to banish my nerves. To help restore a sense of reality, I reach out and hit the doorbell.

  It does the trick, piercing my delusion. The ringing is loud inside — maybe one of the Bleekers is hard of hearing? The neighborhood seems middle class with year-round, not seasonal, residents. But homes like this one nearer the water are a bit more expensive, so it could be seasonal, and no one is here now.

  I give it one more ring, letting my finger hold the button just a hair past comfortable. The rain, at least, has let up a little since I’ve been standing here. Suddenly, I’m self-conscious. I study the New Balance sneakers on my feet, blue and gray. I’m in twill shorts and a linen blouse. Casual but respectable. An unthreatening, sopping wet woman; but one who’s, in the moment, also grippingly paranoid.

  Because this is lunacy. You need to ask Michael about himself, not sneak around like some private investigator.

  It gives me an idea.

  I’m about to turn away, thinking of someone I ought to call, when a light snaps on over my head.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Arnold Bleeker peers out at me with dark eyes hooded by sagging skin. He’s even older than I expected, and frail. “Hello? Can I help you?”

  “Mr. Bleeker?”

  “Yes?”

  “Arnold Bleeker?”

  “Have I won something?”

  His delivery is so dry, I take the question at face value. “No, I’m sorry I . . .”

  Then he cracks a smile, and the expression de-ages him. He’s not so old now. Maybe it was the porch light shining down, creating shadows. “I’m just kidding. What can I do for you? Who are you?”

  “Mr. Bleeker, I know this is highly unusual. I’m Doctor Emily Lindman.”

  I wait for a sign of recognition. Bleeker wears sweatpants and a sagging, oversized polo shirt. I get the sense he’s been sick. Or maybe just lost a lot of weight.

  When he doesn’t seem to recall my name I say, “I’m a psychologist. I work in White Plains.”

  He blinks. It’s unclear whether the additional information has jogged any memory of me. But he says, “You’re soaking wet. Let’s get off the porch.”

  “Oh, thank you.”

  He opens the door wider so I can enter. “Quite a storm,” he says. “I’d take your coat, but you don’t have one. How about a towel?”

  “Sure. That would be great. I’m so sorry to intrude. And I really hope I didn’t wake you . . .”

  I’m not sure if he hears me. He’s moving deeper into the house, and he turns on a lamp as he goes. It’s ornate, stained glass but doesn’t offer much light. It sits on a table that’s behind a couch. The couch is part of an arrangement of furniture forming a living room heavy with shelves and bric-a-brac. Figurines. Dozens of them. Easing a little closer, I can make them out — all manner of pigs.

  Bleeker has disappeared down a hallway. Another light comes on, presumably in the ba
throom. Stairs go up to a second floor. Directly to my left is a dining room, an elegant table with high-backed chairs. More shelves of knick-knacks (more pigs) surround it, but there’s also a double window overlooking the ocean. It must be cracked open, since the curtains are blowing.

  The smell of sea air rides the intermittent breeze coming in, but it’s not enough to cut through the mildew. The place is gloomy. I imagine Tom Bishop coming here after his father’s death and his mother’s imprisonment. One day, he’s a happy boy in a normal life. The next he’s a witness to mariticide and shortly thereafter starts a new life with virtual strangers. At least, that’s the information I’ve been working with.

  Bleeker comes shuffling back. Once again, he strikes me as frail. Unwell. He’s got a towel in his grip, and he’s staring at it like he’s perplexed. “I’m not sure what condition this is in,” he says, then hands it to me.

  I hesitate. Condition?

  Smiling sheepishly, he explains, “I didn’t want to give you one of the ones hanging in there. But Candace does the laundry. That one’s clean; it just might be a little mildewed. Tough here to keep things dry, living so close to the water.”

  I wonder who Candace is — housekeeper? Daughter? — as I blot my face with the towel. It does smell a little musty, but there’s a fresh detergent scent beneath. I dry my hair, dab along my arms and bare legs. “Thank you so much.”

  “I didn’t hear you,” he said. “I was in the back. I like to listen to music. We don’t . . . Alice took care of all of that. How to use these listening gadgets. We sold the old component system. I still have the record player, but no speakers for it, no amp. She got into playing music on the internet. Had some kind of hook up, and Candace has tried to show me. But I just use my phone.” He pulls it out of his pocket, ear buds still attached.

  He looks at me with his dark, shining eyes. “Alice died. Two years ago.”

  “Oh . . . I’m so sorry.”

  “Did you know her?”