The Vanishing Year(84)

A few days later, Yates brings a criminal psychologist to the hospital who can explain Henry. He is a behemoth of a man, folded into one of the hospital chairs, dwarfing it like a piece of dollhouse furniture. He tugs on his beard as he talks, his thick fingers combing the edges of the wiry hair, and I watch, fascinated.

“It doesn’t make sense to me that Henry would go through all the pains of trying to run me over. Break into his own house. For what? It makes no sense,” I protest, helpless and weak, sinking back onto the pile of pillows behind me.

“It makes perfect sense.” Dr. Reginold taps a pen against his notepad. “All your talk about finding Caroline, this pushed him over the edge. Did you ever walk an unruly dog, Ms. Whittaker?”

“I’m sorry?”

“When you walk a dog that isn’t trained, it wanders. The longer the leash, the more erratic it becomes, sniffing here, crossing in front of you, tripping you up, darting after cars. But when reined in, it’ll walk straight and with purpose. It can still be unruly on a short leash, but it won’t. It’s psychological. A short leash sends a message.”

“I’m the dog, here?” I am numb, tired.

“Yes, unfortunately, you are. I’m sorry.” He coughs briefly, then recovers. “To him, you were spinning out of control. If he could rein you in, he could resume the role of protector. He knew your past, why not just simply use it? If you’re scared for your life, you’re not gallivanting the countryside looking for your biological mother. If you find her, there’s a good chance his secret comes out. It was all distraction. And then, when you rebelled, there was rage. Do you understand why?”

I shake my head no.

“Sociopaths are coldly, almost blindly, logical. He’d never think twice about plowing down an intersection full of people if it accomplishes his goal. They care about one thing and one thing only: their objective. Their agenda. His goal was to replace his beloved Tara.”

“Was he capable of love?”

“Tara was his obsession. Someone well below his station in life, whom he could easily manipulate. Someone happy to be isolated. Or at least compliant.”

Tara was so compliant. You are defiant. Unlovable. I wonder if my sister knew she was being manipulated and remember her poem to Henry. A subtle, coded thumbed-nose gesture, almost assertive in the knowledge that he wouldn’t get it. Could it have been her first step in breaking free? Maybe.

“So, it was all an attempt to control me, keeping me under his thumb.”

Dr. Reginold nods. “There is endless psychological research on evil people. But in my experience, the average sociopath has no idea they are wrong. They’re born this way, not made.”

As for Mick, Henry wasn’t lying. There was another trial, one I hadn’t known about, where Mick testified against Jared Pritchett and then later implicated men several rungs higher than Jared in both drug and sex trafficking, in exchange for a lesser sentence. He never went to prison. Jared was out in five years, thanks to overcrowding laws and some kind of a deal. The reason Jared tracked me down and inadvertently killed Tara is unclear. Revenge of some kind. They’re looking into it. Following all leads, I’m assured. Jared killed Tara, Henry killed him, I killed Henry. There was a circle of life feel to the whole thing but it left an acrid burn in the back of my throat if I thought about it.

Mick, on the other hand, never had a knack for catching the right break, always a half beat behind, lagging in the wake of the wave. That he’d eventually succumbed to drugs didn’t surprise me. That he ended up testifying against Jared did.

There is still one remaining mystery. Tara had been living in New York City with a controlling man who refused to call her by the name her family had used her whole life: Joanie. He called it low class. Blue collar. (I could see him saying this with a slightly curled lip, a subtle roll of his eyes, that dismissive wrist flick.) Tara had been borderline agoraphobic, unable to work, ridden with such anxiety that she had to take a myriad of medications just to control it. Or at least she thought she did. I suspect Henry simply liked his women medicated.

In Henry’s room, they found a bottle of Dexedrine, a medication for treating hyperactivity disorder known to cause paralyzing anxiety in patients who did not have ADD. The prescription was for forty pills. There were seven left.

Yates tracked down Maslow, and he filled in a few blanks. Tara had found him, through the public records, six months or so before she was killed. According to Maslow, Tara called him, begged him for information on Hilary Lawlor. He refused, but the call always nagged at him. Truthfully, he said, I always nagged at him. My story. Everything that had happened and how it all went down. He hated how I left town, didn’t trust him to do his job. He lost sleep wondering if I’d survived. He checked up on Jared and Mick. As long as they were in their rightful places, he left well enough alone.

He was retired as it was, gave sunset sail tours off the coast of North Carolina. When he was invited to a wedding in the city, he called Tara back, agreed to meet her. He could never shake that call, he’d said. Not that he knew a whole helluva lot, but he was drawn to her because of me.

He said he nearly fell over when he met her at a diner, she looked so much like me he thought she was me. He told her what little he knew about me. My name was likely Zoe—I’d told him that before I left. I was headed east, as far away from San Francisco as possible. He still had my note. Bright lights, big city. He suspected New York, but didn’t have a lot to go on to back it up. As much as I can figure, shortly after that, the feature in New York magazine ran with that silly group shot at La Fleur d’Elise. It would have been a lot of luck, I suppose, but a sister might recognize a sister, no matter how small the face.