He puffed his cheeks full of air, then let it out slowly. “Mrs. Kingsley was a very sick woman. She suffered a series of breakdowns—three, to be exact—rather significant ones. She was admitted here after each of them. The duration increased with each visit, as did the severity of her condition.”
“How long was her last stay?”
“About a month.”
“Any indication why she killed herself? I mean, other than the obvious. Anything unusual happen that day?”
“Not at all. Mrs. Kingsley was dealing with enormous guilt over her son’s murder. She blamed herself. As time went on, her memories and perceptions about the kidnapping seemed to become more distorted, as did her impression of reality as a whole.”
“Distorted in what way?”
“Her recollection about what actually happened, the circumstances leading to it—none of it made any sense, and most of it seemed to lack truth. After a while, it started sounding like she was talking about someone else’s life rather than her own. She was a different person.”
“What kinds of things did she say?”
He gazed down at his notes, threw his hands up, shaking his head. “I honestly wouldn’t know where to begin. Purely illogical thinking.”
I leaned forward to glance at the notes. “Can I have a look?”
He dropped his arms down to shield them and stared at me as if I’d asked the unthinkable. “Absolutely not.”
“But Mrs. Kingsley’s no longer alive, and her husband gave me permission.”
“That’s not the point, Mr. Bannister. It’s at my discretion whether or not to release them, and I choose not to.”
I shot him a long, curious gaze. He broke eye contact by picking up the phone, hastily punching a few buttons, and then said, “Ms. Penfield, please come to my office immediately.”
“Doctor Faraday, you should understand my intentions here. I’m not trying to—”
“I understand your intentions just fine. You have a job to do. So do I.”
Penfield walked in, spared me a quick glance, then gave the doctor her attention. He said, “Please put these records back where they belong.”
She nodded, moved toward his desk.
I tried again. “Doctor, I don’t want to put Mrs. Kingsley or this hospital in a bad light. I just want to tell her story so people can understand the hell she went through. Not seeing those records would be missing the biggest part.”
Penfield suddenly looked at me with an expression that was hard to read. I couldn’t tell whether it was animosity or…well, I just couldn’t tell.
The doctor said, “The answer is still no, Mr. Bannister. The records are confidential. End of discussion.”
Penfield grabbed the last of the papers, closed the folder. “Will there be anything else, doctor?”
Faraday shook his head, and she threw me another quick glance before going on her way.
He said, “Now, where were we?”
I nodded toward the door. “We were discussing those records you just had whisked out of here.”
“Look,” he said, exhaling his frustration and shaking his head. “I’m sorry if it came out wrong. It’s not that I’m afraid you’ll put us in a bad light or anything like that.”
“Then what is it? Because quite honestly, I’m a little confused about what just happened here.”
His stare lingered a moment. “Let me put it to you this way. Some things are better left alone. Trust me, this is one of them.”
“I’m not following you.”
“What I’m saying is that the picture you’d see of Mrs. Kingsley would not be a flattering one. And it wouldn’t serve any purpose other than to make her look badly.”
“Doctor, with all due respect, good or bad, it’s reality, and it’s my job to write about it, not hide it.”
With eyes locked on mine, lips pursed, he shook his head.
I tried another option. “Then if you won’t let me see the records, can you at least tell me more about what happened while she was here?”
He paused for a long moment, seemed to be evaluating my words, and then with reluctance in his voice said, “With each visit, she became more disturbed, more agitated…and more lost in her own mind. We couldn’t help her. No one could. Things were becoming extremely tense. And unpleasant.”
“Unpleasant, how?”
“We were concerned about the safety of others.”
“Why?”
He hesitated again. “There were threats.”
“What kind?”
“Death threats. To the staff and other patients—actually, to anyone who came within shouting distance of Mrs. Kingsley. Quite honestly, she frightened people. We’d made the decision to move her to the maximum-security unit, and her husband was in the process of committing her. Permanently.”
“Do you know what brought this on?”
He pressed his hands together, looked down at them for a moment, then back up at me. “When I said Mrs. Kingsley was a different person, I meant it.”
“I’m sorry?”
“She was experiencing what we call a major depression with psychotic features.”
“Which means…”
“She was severely delusional, seeing and hearing things that didn’t exist, and…” He let out a labored sigh. “…and she began assuming an identity other than her own.”
“What identity?”
“She called herself Bill Williams.”
“She thought she was a man?”
He nodded.
Glancing down at my notes, I raked my fingers through my hair, then looked back up at him. “Was she in this state all the time?”
“No. She’d slip in and out.”
“When did it start?”
“Toward the end of her last stay.”
“So, close to the time she died,” I confirmed.
“Yes.”
“And who was this Bill Williams?”
“Nobody, I’m sure. But in her mind, she
“Did she give any details about him? Who he was?”
“Just that he was a murderer.”
“She took on the role of a killer…”
“Yes, and according to her, one of the most dangerous killers of our time, maybe ever.”
“What did he do?”
“Question should be, what didn’t he do? She reported that he began murdering when he was nine years old. Lured his best friend into a shed behind his house, then beat him to death with a claw hammer, to the point where the child’s face was unrecognizable.”
I cringed at the thought, said nothing.
“She talked about it frequently—as Bill Williams, that is. She…I mean,
