“Certainty is the mind’s salve, quelling life’s pervasive anxiety,” Dr. Maxwell Deguise wrote in his bestselling book Embrace Stress Like a Lover. “Regrettably, it is also altogether illusory.”
When the graves came into view, Dr. Maxwell Deguise hoisted a trembling index finger. “There are crystalline moments when one must boldly act in order to successfully revise one’s life story...” he croaked, quoting from his Paths to Editing Your Life, “...and one must always—always!— design and pursue goals that forcefully embody the central theme of one’s existential magnum opus.”
It was astounding enough to hear an elderly psychologist with failing mental faculties quoting himself so precisely, especially since I’d come to suspect that recently he might have begun having difficulty remembering to consistently don his underwear before his pants. What made this moment even eerier was that, as he quoted those lines, we—seventy-eight-year-old Dr. Maxwell Deguise and I, Dr. Elliot Albert, his colleague, biographer, and trustworthy caretaker of ten years—were lying on our bellies in the moist grass outside the Konner County Veterinary Clinic, noses pressed against the grimy basement window as we peered at rows of at least twenty tiny graves uniformly spaced across the sodden floor.
Other than an indolent midnight breeze, only a chorus of crickets and frogs kept us company. The mercury vapor pole light outside the clinic rendered Max’s face and bald pate a chalky purple. I marveled at how his appearance had changed during the decade I’d known him. Once he’d looked like a leviathan among his fellow men, standing straight and tall. Now, he resembled nothing more than a melting statue of a gnome.
I sniffed the night air, and I swore I smelled madness coming off him in sour, sultry layers.
I turned toward him and whispered, “I’m not sure it’s a good idea for us to be here.”
He harumphed like he was going to choke up something thick and bold, then raised his eyebrows, twin tangled nests that flitted stiffly in the dim light. “Elliot, with the data before our eyes, there can be no question about the direction I must travel.” Then he began quoting himself again, this time from his bestseller Suturing Life’s Open Wounds: “‘Our perception is all. It, more than biology or instrumental conditioning or cognitive schema, determines our behavior. We must ensure, however, that the map we draw of life as we live it is not mistaken for the territory itself.’ You see? With these data, I know my territory, Elliot. It’s as clear as a sunrise. Now it’s just a matter of dispatching justice in a decisive, final fashion. It’s time, my friend, to write the end of this particular story.”
It was at that very moment I knew for certain that my world-renowned mentor was intent on murdering a veterinarian.
How to explain a psychological transformation such as the one I witnessed in Dr. Maxwell Deguise, a metamorphosis from kindly, brilliant psychologist to tongue-lolling assassin?
His transmutation, I was certain, began only ten hours earlier...
“I was seventeen years old. My initial meeting with Dr. Maxwell Deguise after a sold-out lecture at Coe College evermore molded my future. Perhaps noticing the openness and empathy I’d brought to our encounter, he soon exposed his soul to me as perhaps he had to no one before. He described the tragic loss of his wife to cancer only three months before, as well as the deaths of their four beloved cats over a two-year period, the last of which had succumbed to diabetes a mere week before I introduced myself to him.
“He was lost alone in the world. He needed me.
“Though at the time I didn’t know it. Dr. Deguise was to become my mentor, and I his surrogate son. He graciously paid for my doctoral education and then took me under his wing for my post-doc internship, eventually making me a full partner, intending to pass along his wisdom and, eventually, his practice...”
“So? What do you think of it?” I asked, resting the typed draft of A Trail of Mirrors in my lap. “It’s just a section of my Introduction. I figured since I’m nearing the end of the manuscript, I’d give the opening a try.”
Max was leaning back in his chair, gazing at the ceiling as though life’s secrets were darting about in the corners of the room. “Why, I think that’s fine, Elliot, just fine,” he said in his calm, even voice, scratching his bald head as though he were subjugating a rash.
I smiled and sat a little taller in my chair. “That’s great to hear. I’ve never written a book before, much less a biography. Do you think it’s okay that I bring myself into the story and mention that personal stuff? After all, this is your story.”
He sat bolt upright and pointed his rheumy eyes my direction. “Aha, you are part of my story, a central part, my boy. And I think the more that personal facets of my life are revealed, the more readers will understand my career and the fortunate path it’s taken.”
I cleared my throat and pressed a finger against my lips, uncertain whether or not this was the appropriate moment to bring up the Candy Lorber case. After a few seconds of reflection, I resolved to forge ahead.
His eyes had become momentarily unfocused, so I tapped my foot sharply against the floor to secure his attention before proceeding. “Max, I’m sorry but...well, we need to have a section about Candy Lorber in the manuscript. It can be brief.”
His eyes widened. “For heaven’s sake, why?”
I shrugged. “Omitting it would rob readers of an important, instructive drama in your career. Anyway, most of them probably read about the case in the National Enquirer or the Star.”
“But that was thirteen years ago.” His face rumpled like a washcloth.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “People already know about it, and I’m sure that if we don’t address it, the readers—not to mention the critics—will only focus upon what’s missing in your story, not what’s there.”
He grunted, then jiggled his hand as if preparing to shoo an oncoming gnat. “You know, Elliot, I believe it was Jung who once said that many people come to therapy not to eliminate their neurosis, but to perfect it. Such was the case of Candy Lorber.”
I pulled my legal pad to the top of the stack and prepared to take notes.
He paused briefly, then said, “I’m convinced that far from coming to me for assistance in casting out her personal demons, she ultimately came to therapy in order to make a horrendous personal statement against all therapy, all therapists. She was the most sadly hateful and pathological human being I’ve ever encountered. Beyond that, I’m saying nothing. If that doesn’t satisfy the readers and critics, well, to Hades with them.”
I raised my hand. “Hold on, just a second. Let me look through my other notes.”
I flipped through several sheets and began reading.
Candy Lorber was forty-seven years old, twice divorced, 350 pounds, and seemed to carry the full weight of the world on her bowed shoulders. Her graying, stringy hair hung down, partially obscuring her face. She wept throughout the first hour of her therapy with Dr. Deguise, and was so distraught that he remained with her, though her fifty-minute session was clearly over.
“I don’t want to live,” she wailed, eyes streaming tears. “Don’t you understand?”
“I don’t believe you,” Dr. Deguise replied, his voice as flat as the prairie.
She reached into her purse and pulled out a straight razor, flicked it open.
Then, with Dr. Deguise watching impassively. Candy Lorber carefully drew the razor across one wrist, then the other. She dropped the razor as blood began slowly dripping onto her shoes and pooling on the carpet
Dr. Deguise said nothing. Not a word.
Facial features stretched like a balloon ready to burst, she said, “I just want to walk out of here. There’s a blizzard outside. I just want to walk and bleed until I’m no more. Until I die. Unless you can help me.”
“Can you find your way out?” Dr. Deguise said. Then he got up and left the room. Just like that
Candy Lorber remained seated for a few harrowing moments. Then, overtaken by despair and abandonment, she walked out of the office.
She trudged through a blinding snowstorm, came upon a nearby community college, pulled out a pistol she’d hidden in her purse that night, and shot three students and four security guards before police gunned her down.
She lived for three days before dying...
Max interrupted, “Can’t you examine your notes later? Ask me something else. Is that all you’re wanting to talk about? That unfortunate Lorber woman?”
“No, one other thing,” I said, laying the stack of notes and typewritten pages at my feet, then grabbing a nearby file. “I had a client yesterday I wanted to ask you about. Not for the book; just a brief consultation, if you don’t mind.” He brightened. Nothing innervated him more than a challenge to unravel a clinical mystery.
I opened the file folder and said, “I have a new client who’s a veterinarian, fifty-three years old, married. Over the past several years he’s developed the most unfortunate and severe compulsion I’ve encountered since joining the practice.” I paused, then continued slowly enough for him to construct the images in his mind. “He tortures animals—cats, specifically—that are left in his care, and then buries them in tiny graves in his clinic’s basement. He tells the owners that they died unexpectedly. He can’t stop himself, as hard as he tries. He’s lost count of how many cats he’s tortured to death. Until psychotherapy can help him, what can I do, ethically? I can’t just sit back and listen anymore.” “Who is this vet?”
“Dr. Randall Jones.”
Abrupt tears shimmered in his eyes. “Elliot, he was my vet. He’s the one who—’’
I clapped my hand over my mouth. “Oh, my God. He took care of your cats?”
Leaning his forehead against his hand, he said, “So that’s why they all died. All of them. Excuse me a moment, son.”
He pulled a handkerchief from his front pocket and wiped each eye in hasty, flicking succession.
I reached over and patted his hand. “I’m sorry, Max. I’m sorry to hit you with this. But really, I’m stumped. What can I do?”
“Call the authorities,” he said with a flap of his hand.
I shook my head. “I can’t. Violation of confidentiality. He hasn’t threatened himself or others.”
He sighed. “Then persuade him to turn himself in.”
I held out my hands, palms up, highlighting my helplessness. “He won’t do it, Max, not in a million years. He’d be throwing away his career.”
He went silent for what must have been two minutes. Then, slowly and deliberately, he nodded. “A conclusion has taken form in my brain,” he said. “Come back to me at the end of the day. I’ll give you your answer.”
Dr. Maxwell Deguise was universally esteemed for his unique and insightful interventions for any type of human psychological problem, being able to transfigure his insights into effective clinical action.
Perhaps this is why, in a 1999 survey of psychologists, he was voted one of the ten most influential psychologists in the world.
Ranking highest among the adjectives that could be used to describe his therapeutic approach is “astonishing.”
But to listen to him, the formula was a simple one: “First, throw a monkey wrench into the pathology machine in whatever way you can; then, present a door to beneficial resolution. People will always walk through that door.”
He bounded into my office a little before 5 p.m., exuding a level of energy I hadn’t witnessed since meeting him. A smile spread across his face as thin and flat as a steak knife. His sideburns angled backward like gills.
“I have reached my conclusion,” he said. “Elliot, you know me as an innovator. Well, this time I’m going to surprise even you.”
I set aside the manuscript and leaned toward him. “You sure seem elated.”
“I am, my son.” He sat down and reclined, maintaining his smile as he let his eyelids go to half-mast. “Certainty does that. Elliot, you know the one frustration that goes with being a psychologist?”
“Well, I’d say—”
“It’s that so often, in the drama of life, we therapists, in essence, do nothing. Nothing. I’ve personally beheld every manner of human pain and foible and, typically, my clinical instincts have allowed me to help the clients examine their life-maps, chart a new course, and blaze a fresh trail with my support.”
“True. That’s a direct quote from Secrets of a Clinical Master, isn’t it?”
“Indeed. But don’t you see, Elliot? That restrictive viewpoint shackles us from what might be more effective facilitation of healing. There have been so many cases in which I’ve wished, fantasized that I could really do something, play a more active role in my clients’ lives. Hear me out: Haven’t you ever worked with an abused wife and wished you could sneak into the house one night and bludgeon her bastard husband into a tattered pile of flesh? Haven’t you worked with a child who’s been psychologically beaten down to the point of emptiness by uncaring, neglectful parents who think of no one but themselves? And haven’t you wanted to take out a contract on the monsters and simply take the child home and raise him yourself? Haven’t you ever seen a client who’s so forlorn and lost in life that you’ve wanted to put your arm around her shoulders and take a nice long walk in the woods, just to comfort her, instead of just saying, ‘You seem to be feeling pretty hopeless today’?”
“Well, I guess we all have those fantasies. It’s part of the profession. But how does that relate to the case I presented?”
He clenched his fists in front of him and gritted his teeth so forcibly I heard them creak. Then he said, “We’re talking about defenseless animals here, Elliot. Cats...’’ He paused. His head dropped and he wiped his eyes free of unexpected teardrops. “My cats.”
“I still don’t understand. You’re not making sense—”
“That’s all you need to understand, Elliot, because I won’t have you involved. I probably shouldn’t have said a word to you about this. Remember, Elliot: Your only job is to remain the supportive therapist for Dr. Jones. Just know, in your heart, that after tonight your client’s difficulties shall disappear completely. I am so certain of what I must do.’’
“But…
He clapped his hands once, rose, and left the room moving lightly, like a dancing ghost.
I picked up my pen and began to write.
Years of constant contact with another human being induces what might as well be termed ESP. Having witnessed and heard the twists and turns of their reasonings, the modes by which they fashion their perceptions of and approaches to life, soon their thinking becomes second nature to us, whether or not we realize it
Although I knew that my ethical obligation was to prevent Dr. Deguise from doing something foolish and dangerous, not to mention to warn his intended victim, what can I say? Sometimes one finds one’s most meaningful life paths amid unexpected territory and I knew my destiny was to be with Dr. Maxwell Deguise.
I needed to be there.
I waited until well after sundown, then drove to a country road that ran parallel to the vet clinic’s road, parked, then crept through an adjacent cornfield to the outer perimeter of the clinic property. Even with only the illuminating bruise of the single pole light outside the clinic, I could make out the crouching figure of Dr. Maxwell Deguise amid a cluster of bushes.
Parked in the lot out front was a muddied Ford pickup truck displaying the license plate ANML DR.
So the vet was there, and already, Max was present and ready for action, whatever action it was he had ultimately designed.
Bent over like a damaged marionette, he skulked across the yard to a window from which golden light shone. I ran, tiptoes barely skimming the earth, timing my arrival so I’d intersect Max’s trajectory.
He heard me coming, turning until I saw that he was holding both a flashlight and a pistol in his gloved hands. His eyes widened, and he quickly pushed the pistol into his suit coat pocket.
“Elliot?” he said as I approached. “What in the devil are you doing here?”
Panting, I answered, “I came...because I needed to... You’ve always been there for me...I want to be here for you.”
He scowled and shook his head. “If you must. But no matter what you see, please let this night run its course—”
Hearing no disagreement from me, he gestured for me to follow him to the basement window.
We lay on our stomachs and then, our heads only inches apart, we peered through the window and saw the rows of tiny graves, swellings of piled dirt, each no larger than a watermelon.
“I’m going to do it,” he muttered, and then lay there mutely, his flashlight beam playing back and forth across the graves like a honeyed pendulum.
Minutes later, we stood up and moved to yet another window, where a light had switched on.
Simultaneously, we crouched down when Dr. Jones walked into the room. Dressed in blue jeans painted with some manner of dung, and wearing a T-shirt from the University of Missouri, he carried in his hand something I thought, at first, was a cattle prod. It was a long, thin rod and out of its end protruded a slim four-inch needle. The device contained a long, thin transparent tube filled with violet fluid.
‘‘What’s that thing?” I asked.
“I’m not sure,” Max replied, “but I think it’s what vets use in order to inject caged animals with the euthanizing solution without their having to get close. A coward’s tool, if you ask me.”
Sure enough, that was true, since the next thing we saw was Dr. Jones setting aside the rod-like syringe, then wheeling two large cages into the room. One contained a mother dog and several puppies who lay suckling. The other cage was crammed full of cats of all shapes, ages, and sizes, perpetually moving like a writhing rug.
“I don’t get it,” I said. “If he tortures the animals, why would he euthanize them? How can we be sure?”
“Oh, we can be sure,” Max said. “Remember what we just saw? A graveyard in the basement. He’s up to no good. I’m certain of it. And I’m here to put an abiding stop to his quiet evil. Forever. Come with me.”
I followed him to an entrance. Befitting a rural practice, the door was unlocked.
Max placed his gloved hand on the pistol in his pocket and patted it.
Sweat had appeared on my forehead and began trickling down into my eyes.
As he opened the door, I laid my hand on his shoulder. “Steady, Max. Please. Think. Don’t do this.”
He shook his head. “This time, I’m not sitting back and just letting the story unfold before my eyes. I’m taking action. I’ll end this suffering in its dark tracks.”
I made sure the door shut softly behind us, then trailed Max into an empty exam room. The vet was just around the corner, whistling to himself.
I made a vain attempt to grab Max’s arm, but he shrugged me off with amazing ease.
And then, suddenly, we were face to face with Dr. Jones.
He was six feet tall, thin as a summer cornstalk, and had salt-and-pepper hair, cut curiously like Moe Howard’s.
Amazingly, when he saw we had slipped into his death chamber, he smiled.
“Hey, how ya doin’, Max?” Dr. Jones said, letting the death rod hang at his side. “Nice evening, isn’t it?”
Max grinned, and I heard his teeth chattering. “We are fine, Dr. Jones, but I presume that the animals to whom you are charged to heal are not so fine. In fact, I daresay that the animals in those cages are doomed.”
He nodded and smiled wistfully. “You’re right. When I see these strays show up at the pound, it reminds me of how irresponsible most people are. Truth be told, I have more respect for these creatures than I do for the people who brought them in.”
Max brandished his pistol. “Enough of this. Take us into your basement of death.”
Dr. Jones initially smiled, but then seemed to notice the murderous look in Max’s eyes. “What is this about?
“It’s about delivering a bit of justice to this world. It’s about avenging helpless animals who are being tortured by a subtly insane sadist.”
Dr. Jones cocked his head like a hound. “Are you one of those animal liberation people? I mean, if you are, as far as I’m concerned, you can take these strays, let them loose, do whatever you’d like. I get no pleasure out of euthanizing them.”
Max aimed his pistol straight at Dr. Jones’s head. “You heard me. Take us to the basement.”
“Why? There’s nothing in there.”
Max chuckled. “I beg to differ. Tonight, my colleague and I came and had a look. There’s much to see down there, testament to the suffering you’ve caused to those who are powerless to defend themselves.”
The blood left Dr. Jones’s face, rendering it the color of ash.
Still gripping the euthanizing rod, he turned and headed toward a door, opened it, and flicked on the basement light, then began slowly walking down the steps.
We followed.
When he had reached the bottom of the stairs, Dr. Jones said, “My God! What is this?”
He went up to one of the numerous dirt mounds that we’d seen through the window and kicked it. A small, dark mote of dust floated into the air, then eddied into nothingness.
“I have no idea what these are,” Dr. Jones said. “No idea at all.”
“I’ll tell you what they are,” said Max. “They are the graves of animals who were loved by their human companions. Tell me, Dr. Jones, where is my Phil? Where is my Suki? Where are the small creatures who cherished me without hesitation, who told me I’m alive by their very presence? Are they here?”
Dr. Jones dropped the rod to the floor. “What the hell…”
Hatred seemed to trill from Max’s mouth when he said, “I’ve never even heard of such a level of vicious abuse in my fifty-odd years of practice.”
Dr. Jones laughed quietly. “Abuse? Max, you sound crazy. Are you serious?”
Max raised the pistol and fired toward the ceiling. The explosive sound caused all three of us to jump.
“What do you do to the poor little souls?” Max demanded. “Do you skin them, experiment on them, bury them alive—?”
‘‘I what? Why, I’ve never—”
“Shut up! I won’t hear any more from the likes of you. I entrusted my loved ones with you and you killed them! You took away the last joys in my life.”
Suddenly, I stepped in front of Max. He wasn’t used to my being assertive with him, and thus paused long enough for me to easily grab the pistol from his hand.
“Elliot,” Max said, “what are you doing? I told you, back at the office, that this was my task. I didn’t want you here.”
“I couldn’t have missed this, Max. You see, I set this up. All of it. I set you up.”
“What are you saying, my boy?”
“I’m not your boy!” I shouted as I felt my facial features stretching into something approaching derangement. Then, seeing Dr. Jones beginning to back away toward the stairs, I aimed the gun at him. “Stay put, you! I’m not done with either of you. I haven’t even started.”
Max spoke again, and this time his voice trembled. “What is this all about?”
“It’s about using your own skills against you, Max, using your own certainty to control you, to right a wrong. Can’t you see it? Or is the perception I created for you imposing itself without resistance? Dr. Jones doesn’t torture or kill animals. I’m sure he’s a very nice vet. Over the years, you’ve spoken so warmly about him, how he took care of your cats. He’s never consulted with me at all, Max, never even set foot in our office. After my plan formed, I sneaked out here with a shovel last night, sneaked into the basement and created these little mounds of dirt. They aren’t graves at all. But you see, perception is all, just like you’ve always said.”
“You orchestrated this?”
“Every bit of it. I threw a monkey wrench into your pathology by bringing up Candy Lorber—thus introducing insecurity and self-doubt into you—and then I presented a door to resolution by telling you Dr. Jones was a cat torturer. Under the circumstances I created, you had no choice but to take action.”
“Why? After all I’ve done—?”
“Shut up! Do you want to know what you’ve done? You’ve all but adopted the son of Candy Lorber. That’s right. That was my mother you abandoned to die, the woman you couldn’t take time to comfort, the lady who had to shoot up a college campus just to tell the world she hurt.”
He was stunned by my revelation. “She was your mother? My God, she never would tell me the name of her son.”
My voice trembled as much from grief as rage. “I was in college when she died, the very college where she lost her life. My life was adrift until that night. But once I knew what you’d done to Mom, I had a goal in my life. What is it you wrote? ‘One must always—always!—establish and pursue goals that forcefully embody the theme of one’s existential magnum opus.’ I established and pursued one central goal: revenge. After changing my name, I sought you out, begged for your help, and thanks to you, I earned my doctorate in psychology and joined your practice. And you know what’s kept me going all this time? Well, I’ll tell you. It was the knowledge that this moment would come. It was just a matter of fashioning your perceptions for you. Drawing your life map. Perception is everything, Max.
“So you see how perfect it is?” I continued. “I’ll shoot Dr. Jones here. Then I’ll inject you with the euthanizing fluid. It’ll look like you killed Dr. Jones, but he managed to valiantly fight back. The police will find two dead bodies. Case closed. And of course, then I inherit your practice.”
“Oh, my boy,” he said, pity informing his voice. “You were right in quoting me about certainty. It is the grand salve, and also the greatest illusion.”
“Exactly. Ironic that it turned out to be your downfall.”
He shook his head and smiled sadly. “No, my son, it was your downfall.”
He took two steps toward me, arms outstretched like he was going to hug me.
I aimed at his chest and pulled the trigger.
Click.
“You see, Elliot,” Max said, “I had only one bullet in the gun and, as you saw, I fired it into the ceiling. It was a blank, to boot. Just for show.”
“But—”
“No, Elliot, now I talk. You underestimated my clinical and personal acumen, it seems. I’ve seen your deterioration these past months. I’ve seen you trying to manipulate me, so much so that I decided to feign a bit of encroaching Alzheimer’s. That way, if you were intent on nefarious deeds, you’d feel freer to show your true colors. And you did, in spades. The fact is, as soon as you told me Dr. Jones had consulted with you, I simply called him up and explained my suspicions about you. He volunteered that he’d never consulted with you, and he was kind enough to play along tonight. You see, I knew you’d want to be here when I came, although I admit I didn’t know you wanted to kill me. I just assumed you wanted to put me in an embarrassing trap, then take over the practice. You disappoint me, my son.”
Dr. Jones reached down and picked up the euthanizing rod.
Instinctively, I prodded the pistol in his direction before it occurred to me that other than throwing it at him, the gun was useless.
“Drop it,” said Dr. Jones, and I did.
Max said, “Sit down, Elliot.”
I lowered myself to the sodden floor and crossed my legs Indian-style.
Dr. Jones leaned forward and pressed the euthanizing rod’s needle against my sternum.
“I am truly sorry for you,” Max said. “For the life map you created back when you were in college was utterly false. Tell me, Elliot, what made you think that I abandoned your mother, that I didn’t care what happened to her? Did you read it in a tabloid?”
I lifted my eyes to his. “No! That’s what Mom told me. I saw her in the hospital before she died. I was with her...
Max shook his head. “As I said, I’m truly sorry. Your mother, Elliot, was a master manipulator, much more adept at it than you are. And it seems her last act in life was to manipulate you.”
“Bullshit,” I said, then spat at him.
He calmly removed a handkerchief and wiped the spittle from his pants. “If you’d just told me the truth when we first met, told me she was your mother, I could have helped you.
“Elliot, your mother was filled with hatred. Hatred for the world, hatred for the therapists who hadn’t helped her, hatred for her family. And hatred for the son she bore out of wedlock, the son she never wanted, the son she wanted to kill because she perceived him as having ruined her life by his very birth. Hatred for you, Elliot. What she threatened that night was to kill you. When I tried to reason with her, she cut her wrists, then attacked me and ran from the office. I called the police, but they didn’t find her until they’d received word that she was rampaging on the campus, where she’d gone to find and kill you.”
“You’re lying,” was all I could manage to say, but even then I felt my world crumbling about my shoulders.
Patting me on the shoulder, Max said, “I’m sure you believe I’m lying. Certainty is a curse, is it not? Elliot, that night I called the police because I was concerned about her...and about you, though I didn’t even know your name. I’ve never spoken or written about it because I wished her family no more pain. But you could have read the police report, Elliot: I told them what happened that night. You could have attended the inquest. You could have read the interviews with me in the newspaper accounts. You could have talked with me. I could have helped you.”
I felt like I was melting. “I didn’t think I needed to know any more. I’d already talked to Mom. I knew who was responsible.”
“I know, my boy, I know,” said Dr. Deguise, “and it seems that you have two choices here. You’ve already attempted murder, technically speaking. And if you attempt to attack us, I suppose Dr. Jones can inject you with the euthanizing fluid. The gun has your fingerprints on it. The police will find one body, the body of a misguided soul in this basement who tried to kill an innocent veterinarian and a world-famous psychologist.”
“Do I have any other choices?” I asked, feeling as though I were shrinking into fetus-hood with each passing second.
“Of course you do. In life, there are always other choices.” And then Dr. Maxwell Deguise interlocked his fingers and recited it like a liturgy: “‘One must always—always!—establish and pursue goals that forcefully embody the theme of one’s existential magnum opus.’
“What is your story to be, Dr. Elliot Albert?” he asked me.
When I began writing Dr. Deguise’s biography, how was I to know that A Trail of Mirrors was ultimately to be my story?
I only became truly conscious last week. Apparently I lapsed into a catatonic state that night, under the weight of the knowledge Dr. Deguise had shared about my mother. Until I woke up, I sat here in the psychiatric hospital, being fed by aides, and led from bed to dining room and back again.
I have replayed our visit to the Konner County Veterinary Clinic a thousand times, and written more pages about my mother than I can imagine. But it doesn’t help.
Perceptions die hard, if they die at all.
The story my mother told me that emotion-laden night in the hospital room has so embedded itself into me that now, one hundred twenty days after my involuntary admission to the psychiatric unit, it remains as crisp and vivid as if it had happened to me. As though I had been there.
Could my mother have hated me so profoundly and never expressed it directly to me? Could she have wanted me dead?
Or had Max all along planned to scuttle me out of the practice, to use my youth and enthusiasm until it threatened him, and then to dispense of me like trash through his masterful manipulations?
A terrifying thing in this life, I have concluded, is uncertainty.
It’s nearly as terrifying as certainty.
I received a letter this morning. Its postmark suggested to me that it was mailed by Max. It read:
Dear Max,
If you don’t see fit to take responsibility for your son, I’ll take drastic action. Mark my words. You can’t hurt me anymore.
Candy
A tiny typewritten note was stapled to the letter:
Our own lives have become clear, have they not? We must talk soon, Elliot.
Love,
Dad
How do I go about revising my life story?
How can I ever know if it’s finally true?
I wonder where they keep the razors here.