All Is Not Forgotten(71)

Patients with borderline personality disorder are far more likely to form unhealthy attachments to their therapists than other patients. There are numbers for the increased likelihood as high as 40 percent. The numbers don’t matter so much as the certainty that it is true. Part of our training is to maintain strict boundaries. But as I have already confessed, my training proved inadequate when I first encountered Glenn Shelby. Boundaries were crossed, an obsessive attachment was formed, and a period of stalking followed—one that was, mercifully, snuffed out by the fear of solitary confinement and possibly new charges that would have kept Glenn in prison.

As an aside, this is a perfect case study to disprove the notion that no patient with an Axis II disorder can be effectively treated. The milder forms are in fact treatable, using the very basic techniques of carrots and sticks. These patients can and do curb their behavior to get rewards and avoid punishment.

They can be treated. But they cannot be cured. Once the carrots and sticks are removed, their behavior invariably returns. I never received another letter from Glenn, even after he was released from prison. But I had come to learn that the letters were not the end of his efforts to feel close to me. I came to see him this day to make it stop.

Our conversation continued for about an hour. Then I left and went home.

One week later, Glenn was found hanging from his ceiling.

When I heard the news, I would remember the things in his apartment I saw that day—things that caught my eye for one reason or another but did not give rise to any concern. They were entirely benign. The jump rope in the corner of the room, coiled up like a snake. The step stool in the kitchen. And the metal pull-up bar that had been installed into the ceiling near the bathroom door. The ceilings were quite high—eight feet, perhaps. I can close my eyes even now and picture him swinging from it, the white stool lying on its side just past the reach of his toes. The rope tied nice and short so his feet would not reach the floor. Naked except for a pair of blue briefs. I do not like to dwell on this. Perhaps I do because it was not just an average failure, the way that most people experience failure in their professions. My failure, this failure, ended with the horrific image I have just placed into your head, the same image I live with every day. It is always there, reminding me that even I cannot cure every patient.

I left Glenn alive, shaking but otherwise functional. I drove back to the office, saw another patient, then went home to my family.

The next day I got a call from Detective Parsons. It was a call I had been expecting. Remember, I was functioning at my very best again, clearheaded, precise. I could see the future. I could see it because I was controlling it. My puppets on their strings. The sticks in my hand.

You were right, Alan. About the alibi. It’s all f*cking crap!

“I’m sorry. I really am.” I was not.

How did you know? Are you gonna tell me? What else are you hiding?

“I can’t tell you. I’ve explained about—”

Yeah, your sacred patient confidentiality. Honest to God, Alan. Sometimes I think you’re screwing with my head.

“It’s quite normal to want to shoot the messenger. I’m not offended. Nor did I create that assault record from Florida or lie about an alibi. All of this is real. I had no part in its making.”

Parsons sighed loudly. I know that. I’m sorry. I’m just not looking forward to this shit show. I can feel a bad ending. One way or another. I feel it in my gut. He’s gonna have a whole team of people crawling up my ass.

“And yet it has to have one, doesn’t it? It has to end,” I said calmly. “Have you asked Sullivan and his wife about it?”

They claim it’s an honest mistake. But the bills from the club don’t lie. There’s one charge from the wine dinner. The tab was signed by the wife, Fran. Sullivan has no alibi.

“I see.”

And he has that record in Florida. The world is gonna eat this up. He’ll have to come out swinging.

“I imagine that’s true,” I said. I did not challenge him on his conclusion about Bob’s innocence. It didn’t matter what Parsons thought. What mattered was the fear in his voice. This was the sort of “f*cking crap” that ruined a man’s career.

“What happens next?”

He already hired a lawyer. Some shark from Hartford. Karl Shuman. Got those gangbangers off back in the late ’90s.

“I remember that case.”

Made a name for himself. Now he just handles anyone who can afford him. And now we can’t go near Bob unless we formally detain him. Bring him in for questioning. That’s when the press will know. That’s when this whole thing blows up.

“I am sorry you have to deal with this. I wish I could help you more.”

Alan, please, can’t you just say whether this will stand up or not? Give me a little wink or a nod. Anything? I gotta make a decision here.

“The truth is, Detective, that it wouldn’t matter if I gave you a wink or a nod. Nothing that has happened in this office would ever be admissible. That’s the trouble with this treatment all these victims are getting. Even after a memory is recovered, there’s just too much uncertainty for the law to give it any weight. I’ve read the cases, the decisions. These patients get beat up on the stand, and the court has to allow it.”

Parsons was silent for a moment. He did not want to hang up the phone in the same state of mental chaos he’d been in when he dialed my number. He was in a box, and there was no way out. If he did nothing and the press found out there was enough to move forward, he would be called out as a panderer to the rich and powerful. But if he dragged Fairview’s golden child through the mud for no reason, there would be lawsuits and private investigators. With lawsuits came dismissals. With the PIs would come close scrutiny of his efforts to solve the case, of which he seemed increasingly fearful. He was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. The only way out was if Bob Sullivan was guilty. And he was not.