What She Found (Tracy Crosswhite #9)(92)

Hopper pondered this for a moment. “Did I tell you he got a little paranoid?”

“What do you mean?” Tracy asked.

“He asked me if he could move his grow operation onto my boat until things died down. We moved it in the middle of the night. Then he stopped using his phone. Said it could be bugged or something.”

“How did he make his calls?” Anita asked.

“He’d go up the street to the Shell station. Back then it had a pay phone; you remember a pay phone? You stepped inside a booth and shut the door? Nah, you’re probably too young.” Hopper winked at Tracy.

They didn’t get a lot of new information, but Hopper’s statement that Slocum used the pay phone at the Shell station was certainly critical. It indicated he had likely been the person who called Lisa Childress the evening before his death and her disappearance.

Upon leaving Hopper’s boat, Tracy drove Anita to the University of Washington to speak to Dr. Kavya Laghari. Melissa Childs had agreed to allow Laghari to examine her and perform a series of tests.

Tracy had done some Internet research of her own, just enough to be dangerous, after Childs told them her vague recollection of the night in question and concluded there was enough uncertainty in the literature to make people believe Childs might remember enough to make the rats flee the sewer and look to make a deal. If Anita wrote the article just right.

“This is a most fascinating case,” Laghari said in her slight Indian accent. “Based upon the information Detective Crosswhite provided to me, I classified your mother as having retrograde amnesia. After reviewing her file, speaking with her at some length, and performing my own series of tests, I am more convinced your mother has what we call dissociative or psychogenic amnesia.”

“Which is what?” Childress asked.

“Dissociative amnesia is a rare type of retrograde amnesia resulting from an emotional shock. It’s not caused by physical damage to the brain, like other types of retrograde amnesia.” Laghari moved from her chair to her computer monitor, turning it so that Tracy and Anita could see the screen. “The MRI I performed on your mother’s brain does not show evidence of a past injury.”

“Would it, after twenty-five years?” Tracy asked.

“An MRI will show brain atrophy long after the injury. It will show injured or dead brain tissue reabsorbed after a traumatic brain injury.

So, if, for instance, your mother had a stroke, we would see a white spot where the brain was impacted, and that spot would likely remain many years. But it is possible your mother suffered an injury that has healed; she certainly presented at the shopping mall and at the hospital as someone who had a head injury. We don’t have any brain images from back then, so I can’t say with certainty. Dissociative amnesia is a psychological response to trauma that can result from a violent crime. From what your mother told me—her dreams of a dead man shot in the head and not knowing if she killed him would meet that standard.”

“Are the symptoms the same as the symptoms from a traumatic brain injury?” Tracy asked.

“Very similar. Being unable to remember things that happened before a traumatic event, being unable to recall autobiographical information, which is often referred to as a dissociative fugue state.

Dissociative disorders usually develop as a reaction to trauma and help keep difficult memories at bay. In rare cases, the person may forget most, or all, of her personal information, including her name, personal history, friends, and family. The person may sometimes even travel to a different location and adopt a completely new identity, as was the case here. In all cases of dissociative amnesia, the person has a much greater memory loss than would be expected in the course of normal forgetting.”

“But my mother has a memory of the traumatic information. She told us about it.”

“She has only vague images that she cannot place in context. It must have been terrifying for her.”

“Will she ever recover the memory she lost?” Childress asked.

“For most people with dissociative amnesia, memory will eventually return, usually slowly, though sometimes suddenly. In some cases, however, the person is never able to fully recover his or her lost memories. After so many years, I would say it is unlikely. I’m very sorry.”

“Would treatment help?”

Laghari looked sympathetic. “At this point, I would say no.

However, many people learn new ways of coping and lead healthy, productive lives. That seems to be the case with your mother.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Childress asked.

“Your mother recalled you. She didn’t know who you were, or how you related to her life, but she felt a connection to you. That is something to build on. If you have photographs of the two of you, or her life before she had you, put them in a scrapbook and give them to her. Not right away. She has enough going on at present. Do it in time. Go slowly so she is not overwhelmed.”

When they left Laghari’s office, Childress looked stricken.

“You doing okay?” Tracy asked.

“I keep waiting for someone to say they have a magic pill my mother can take that will make her remember everything, and each time I’m told that isn’t going to happen, the disappointment is numbing.”

“I’m not going to tell you that I know what you’re going through or how you feel,” Tracy said. “But I lost my sister when I was twenty-two. I lost my father to suicide after that, and I lost my mother before I had my daughter.”