We arranged to meet with Dr. Varkin at six o’clock. With time to kill we went for an early dinner at Conundrum, our favorite stomping ground when working a case. (The name says it all.) We took a seat at one of the high tops in the bar.
“The usual,” Griff said to Eric when he approached.
“You got it.” The waiter turned and headed for the bar.
Griff stretched his legs out beneath the table, resting his heels on the metal rim around my stool. The toe of his worn Frye boot grazed my shin.
“What do we have so far?” he asked as Eric set a Pinot Grigio and Black Fly Stout in front of us.
I took a sip. (First things first.) “Controlling father, weak, but loving mother, dead brother and an overachieving kid. Reeks of suicide.” I took another sip.
Griff raised his mug, swallowed a third of the dark beer and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He looked across the table and narrowed his brown eyes at me.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Cut the shit,” I said.
“What?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.” I love westerns and Griff has the indifferent cowboy look down. He’s the stranger who saunters into town, takes out the local miscreant for getting rough with a girl then pulls her onto the horse behind him and off they go into the sunset.
“Getting back on track…” I said.
“I didn’t know we’d gotten off.”
I waved him away with the back of my hand. “I think she was cracking under pressure, her own and her father’s. I think she needed a little boost to keep her going and maybe her boost got out of hand.”
Eric set a plate of seafood nachos between us.
“But we don’t know that anything will come back on the drug screen,” Griff pointed out.
“Gina said herself there are things that go undetected.”
“Greg Lambert won’t be thrilled when we tell him that’s the angle we’re pursuing. Puts the possibility of a black mark on his perfect daughter.
“Hey, you’re the one that came up with this, remember?”
“Maybe we’re jumping the gun with a drug theory.”
“That’s the father in you talking. This is the first theory we’ve had, and I think you’re onto something. Let’s play with it.” I sipped my Pinot. It was going down way too easy. “Then again, if she was taking something and it doesn’t show up on the tox screen it’ll be almost impossible to prove. We could smear her and never be able to confirm the theory. If that happens Daddy’s not going to be pleased with us.”
“I think he knows suicide is the cause of death,” Griff said. “But he’s reluctant to accept it until he gets the why. If we pursue the drug use narrative, we may be able to get an answer for him. Even if it’s one he doesn’t like.”
“He’s not gonna like any why we give him.” I stuffed a chip laden with salsa, cheese and scallops into my mouth and sat back to enjoy.
“Probably not. Hopefully Varkin will tell us that he prescribed a bunch of drugs, they interacted and she jumped.”
“That’s a nice, neat little package and places the fault on Varkin not Ashley. Greg would be pleased. But again…what if nothing shows up?”
“You gotta ruin everything, don’t you?”
At five-fifty-five we stepped inside Dr. Varkin’s waiting room. At six o’clock he opened his door. Tall, as in the NBA’s Dwight Howard tall, late sixties and lean as a marathoner, he extended his hand. “Mr. Cole,” he said. “Ms. Callahan.”
We followed him into a room tailor made for comfort. Recliners, couches and beanbag chairs offered themselves to the mentally weary. Griff and I settled side by side on a couch. Dr. Varkin draped his frame over a red leather recliner.
“Greg Lambert said you had some questions regarding Ashley. Why don’t you ask, and I’ll answer?”
“We’ve just come from Dr. Gina Wellington’s office,” Griff said. “She performed the autopsy but found nothing that ruled out the initial summation of suicide by jumping. With all Ashley’s accomplishments, the family is having a tough time accepting that as cause of death, understandably so. Do you have any reason to think she may have been using drugs?”
Dr. Varkin looked surprised. He shook his head. “No, I have no reason to think Ashley was using drugs of any kind. I’d often suggested an anti-depressant but she always refused. She was afraid it would interfere with her athletics. She may have been right about that so I didn’t push it, though I think it would have been helpful given her issues.”
“Her issues,” I said. “Can you elaborate?”
“I first saw Ashley when she was in high school. Shortly after her brother died. She was distraught, as would be expected. As time went on, she got worse rather than better.”
“She couldn’t accept his death?” Griff asked.
“She understood he was ill and it was beyond anyone’s control. But she was never allowed time to grieve. Gwen had a complete breakdown. She was in bed for the better part of a year. Greg, shut down, lived in his own world. Ashley was left to her own devices. The emotional absence of both parents at a time when she was in great need of their love and support caused her to slip toward self-destructive behavior.”
“Self-destructive?” I asked.
“Well,” he shifted his position, uncrossed his legs and planted his wingtips on the floor. With his elbows on his knees he looked directly at me. “I called it self-destructive. Greg would probably call it meeting expectations. Running track was a metaphor for Ashley. If she slowed down enough to look at what was going on in her life, she would have collapsed.”
“Like her parents did,” I said.
Dr. Varkin nodded, “Exactly. She kept moving because they couldn’t. And she was quite good at it, though initially, maybe twenty pounds overweight.”
“Overweight? She looked fit from the pictures I’ve seen,” Griff said.
“From what she told me in our sessions, she was overweight as a child and carried excess weight into high school. Clayton died in her junior year, that’s when things began to change.”
“Kids gave her grief for being fat?” I asked.
“Not kids, her father. She became obsessed with pleasing him. And she didn’t stay overweight for long. Within a year of Clayton’s death, her athletic success caught Greg’s interest and from then on Ashley lived under his microscope. He put her on a diet regimen that would challenge even a professional runner. But Ashley stuck to it verbatim. She would not disappoint. In her eyes, the family had suffered enough. If her running alleviated their despair then she’d have run to the moon and back if she could.”
“What did Gwen think of all this?”
“At first Gwen thought Ashley was working too hard, though she did little to intervene.”
“Because Gwen wasn’t taking care of herself then,” I said. “She was still in bed wasn’t she?”
Varkin nodded. “Most of the time. But she was right. Ashley was working too hard, obsessed with pleasing them. The thinner she was the faster she ran and the faster she ran the happier Greg was. Halfway through her senior year of high school I had her admitted to Maine Medical Center’s Psych ward. She was anorexic, depressed, dehydrated and exhausted.”
“What did Greg have to say about that?”
She’d been accepted at Fensworth as a student and a member of the Women’s Track and Field Team. I think he was more concerned that her hospital admittance would put that in jeopardy than he was about his daughter’s health.
He never visited her. By that time, Gwen was back on her feet. She’d sold her nursery and spent most of her time landscaping the grounds of their home. But she visited Ashley every day for the three weeks of her admittance. Like everything else, Ashley put all her energy into getting well and she excelled at it. She began nutrition classes and continued them throughout that summer. She never slipped into anorexia again, but her eating became as controlled as the rest of her life. As soon as she was discharged Greg put her on a rigorous training schedule.”
“And everything went back to the way it was?” I asked.
Dr. Varkin nodded. I saw Ashley off and on throughout her undergraduate years. Nothing much changed. She pushed herself beyond what her mind and body could support on a daily basis.”
“She pushed herself or her parents did?” Griff asked.
“In truth, they were both so entangled in Ashley, it was hard to know where one ended and the other began. One of the unhealthiest parent/child relationships I’ve seen short of abuse.”
“You said Gwen felt Ashley needed to take better care of herself.”
“Initially, yes, when Ashley was in the hospital. But her concern changed once she saw how involved Greg was becoming. Ashley was receiving a slew of mixed messages from her mother. Gwen was out of bed and happy again, smiling at the finish line. That alone outweighed any health issues Ashley was dealing with.”
“The ultimate example of codependency,” I said. “Guess I’m lucky my parents didn’t give a damn.”
“We all have our demons.”
“And Greg?” I asked before Dr. Varkin tried to schedule me an appointment.
“Greg wanted glory at any cost.” The doctor rubbed his fingers over the gray stubble on his chin. “You must realize that you are dealing with a very disturbed family. Their relationships toward one another are, or were, toxic. They feed each other’s illnesses.”
“But Ashley never took drugs, prescription or otherwise that you know of?” Griff asked.
“None that came from this office and she never mentioned taking anything to me.”
“Do you think she would have?” I asked. “I mean, told you if she were.”
Varkin pursed his lips and exhaled through his nose. He looked at the rug beneath his feet for a few moments weighing his answer. “No, she may not have told me. To her, that would have meant she was flawed. It would have been a secret she buried so deep I doubt anyone will ever uncover it.”
We thanked the doctor for his time and walked to the elevator down the hall from his office. “Jesus,” I said. “I’m exhausted from listening to him describe Ashley’s lifestyle. I can’t imagine actually living it.”
“It’s frightening how much influence parents have over how their kids turn out. Every decision from the moment they’re born impacts who they’ll become.” Griff shook his head, “If you really think about it, it could scare people right out of procreating.”
“Natural birth control,” I said. “Not a bad idea.”
We stopped in front of the elevators and when the doors opened, stepped inside.
“Not everyone screws up their kids,” he said. Look at Allie. She’s awesome.”
“No argument there. But we just bought a house. One step at a time.”
“So, what’s our next step?” he asked. “A puppy?”
“To figure out what happened to Ashley.”
“You’re sidestepping.”
“But not back peddling.”
The doors opened. “Guess I’ll quit while I’m ahead,” he said.