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Right before we left, Connie Oak told us she doubted Martha would be capable of committing an actual murder, but planning them wouldn’t be a problem. Once we were back in the SUV, I was back to brooding over whether locking up Amber and Caroline for crimes committed by Martha and the other was just. Then again, in many ways, Amber and Caroline were already locked up. Amber referred to it as kidnapping when Caroline took their shared body places without leaving Amber memories of it.
But then Connie had told us that Caroline didn’t drive yet, was afraid to learn. Meaning it was Martha or the other that was actually responsible for the so called kidnappings. The other was incredibly careful, not so much as a slip of the name in all the time Connie had been responsible for the shared physical body.
Was it possible that it wasn’t a fully formed identity like Martha, Caroline, and Amber were? I supposed so, I didn’t know much about the condition. I did agree with Connie though, she had been displaying symptoms of it for a long time. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like if while talking to Cassie a totally new personality took over.
“May I ask you a professionally insensitive question?” Gabriel asked. We all shifted in our seats to look at him because we weren’t sure who he was talking to.
“Sure,” I finally said when no one else spoke up.
“Detective Alwood,” Gabriel said.
“Sure,” Kimberly answered. I’d gotten used to calling her Kimberly very quickly, mostly because this was not the Florence I remembered from college.
“Why wasn’t something done about this cult before they killed a bunch of teens?”
“You realize I was in high school at the time right?” She asked.
“Oh, no, I guess that would be about right,” Gabriel stammered a bit.
“I’ve only been detective for a few years and I wasn’t brought up here. The only things I know about the case were what I read in the file after being given it, same as you. But my father-in-law might have some ideas. He has always been active in the community, and while he might be a voodoo priest, his brother was a cop and he’s still good friends with people on the force, it was an issue when I first started there because people thought I might be given special treatment.”
“Were you?” Xavier asked.
“Not unless working my butt off for every promotion counts as special treatment.” Kimberley answered without bitterness or attitude in her voice. “What about you, were you given special treatment?”
“We all were,” I answered her. “I don’t know that any of us could pass a psych eval without coaching from Lucas, including Lucas.”
“Well I knew you were, I didn’t imagine it applied to everyone.”
“It does,” Fiona chimed in. “Most of us were selected for the position we now have because of special skills and experience with serial killers in our personal lives.”
“Oh yeah, I forgot that I just read that big article about you guys where they listed off your personal connections to killers. It was your sister, right?”
“Yes,” Fiona answered without hesitation.
“The one they did after Raphael Henders was captured?” Xavier asked.
“Yeah, sorry, I didn’t think before I blurted that out. I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable or open old wounds.”
“No worries, life is more interesting when the closet has skeletons in it,” Gabriel told her. “And I started it by assuming you would know why the department you work for now didn’t stop this before Melissa...” he paused. “What exactly do I call her Lucas?”
“They, them, she, the plural describes it best,” Lucas told him.
“Before they got to point of committing homicide. Besides, I doubt anyone can predict that someone would create a psychopathic personality.”
“That’s true, it’s incredibly rare for someone with dissociative identity disorder to be violent towards others. It’s usually aimed at their other personalities.”
“Does that mean most people with multiple personalities know about them?” Kimberly asked.
“Yes and no. Sometimes one personality is aware of all the others like Martha and, I suspect, the other one. Usually, though, they don’t. They often talk about feeling possessed or different, and I’ve heard of cases where the personalities could talk to each other like schizophrenic voices in the head. For this particular case, I think Amber’s phrasing works best, she feels as though her body has been kidnapped by Caroline without realizing that others may be involved. But mentally speaking, Amber is still very young, as is Caroline. I believe both of these personalities suffer from the same form of narcissism that nearly all children experience. Understanding anything beyond themselves is nearly impossible and so understanding Martha and the other is not within their capabilities.”
“Why would Martha know about heroin when Melissa didn’t?” Fiona asked.
“That is anyone’s best guess. Everything we don’t know about the brain would probably fill the universe as if it were the home of a hoarder. Why is one personality right-handed and the other left? Why does one personality have an accent but not the others? Why does one personality have a limp or is a savant at the piano or can replicate masterpieces in art while the other one can’t draw a straight line even with a ruler? We can ask why all we want, but the answers are still beyond our grasp. Maybe one day we’ll figure it out, but until then, it’s just a bunch of question marks with meaningless words in front of them.”
“Was her mother’s mental illness a contributing factor?” Gabriel asked.
“Possibly in the passing of mental illness genes as well as in allowing the emotional trauma to be heaped upon her daughter caused the fractures. But we can’t tell you why one person develops this mental illness but a different one doesn’t. In Melissa’s case, there’s the death of her father, her mother’s mental illness, sexual abuse, physical abuse, and the murders of her older siblings. However, if a different person had endured those exact same circumstances, it doesn’t mean that person would break in the same way Melissa did. Maybe they’d only develop PTSS or depression or anxiety or they’d become a sociopath or develop BPD. Exposure alone doesn’t guarantee dissociative identity disorder in the same manner it exists in Melissa, it could be a different manifestation of DID even. Severe personality or affect disorders are not well understood, including why do they happen to some and not others.”
“Where are we going?” I asked after I realized we’d been driving around in circles for a while.
“I’m not entirely sure. I’m not sure where we should go. I’m open to suggestions.”
“The pattern’s been broken. They could be anywhere.”
“I would go after Durant. But I would have gone after Durant first.” I said.
“Dr. Abernathy,” Lucas said. “After all, Abernathy didn’t want to release her from the hospital.”
“But by all accounts, she liked Dr. Abernathy, so I don’t think she’d go after her. Durant killed Melissa, not Abernathy.” I countered.
“That relies on the supposition that she knew Abernathy opposed her release and integration therapy.” Lucas told me. “And she may not have been aware of either.”
“I guess,” I said, sounding doubtful. For some reason, I felt like she did know those things, even if I couldn’t prove it.
