Time Bomb

I closed the closet door and turned back to the ravaged room, tried to picture the way it had looked before the police had come. The damage made it seem more human.

Cot and a dresser. Blank walls. A radio.

The word cell kept flashing.

But I’d seen jail cells that looked more inviting.

This was worse. Punitive.

Solitary confinement.

I had to get out of there.

18

Burden was back in his office, sitting at one of the computer workstations. I wheeled one of the secretary chairs into the center of the room and sat down. He touch-typed rapidly for a few moments before looking up, dry- eyed.

“So. What’s the next step, Doctor?”

“Holly didn’t seem to have many interests.”

He smiled. “Ah, the room. You’re thinking I isolated her. For some ulterior motive.”

Exactly what I’d been thinking, but I said, “No. Just trying to get a picture of the way she lived.”

“The way she lived. Well, it wasn’t like that, believe me. Though I can understand your thinking it was. I’ve done my reading on child psychology. So I know all the theories of child abuse. Isolating the designated victim in order to maximize control. But that had nothing to do with us. Not even remotely. That’s not to say we’re… we were social butterflies. As a family or individually. Our pleasures have always been solitary. Reading, good music. Holly loved music. I always encouraged discussions of current events, various cultural debates. Howard, my firstborn, took to that. Holly didn’t. But I always tried to provide the same sorts of things other children seemed to like. Toys, games, books. Holly never showed any interest in any of it. She hated to read. Most of the time the toys stayed in the box.”

“What did she do for fun?”

“Fun.” He drew out the word as if it were foreign. “Fun. For fun, she talked to herself, created fantasies. And she was inventive, I’ll grant her that. Could take a piece of string or a rock or a spoon from the kitchen and use it as a prop. She had a terrific imagination- genetic, no doubt. I’m highly imaginative. However, I’ve learned to channel it. Productively.”

“She didn’t?”

“She simply fantasized, went no further with it.”

“What were her fantasies about?”

“I have no idea. She was a demon for privacy, liked to close her door tight even when she was very young. Just sit on the floor or on her bed, talk and mumble. If I prodded her to get fresh air, she’d go out into the backyard and settle down on the grass, and start in doing exactly the same thing.”

I said, “When she was younger, did she rock back and forth or try to hurt herself?”

He smiled like a well-prepared student. “No, Doctor. She wasn’t autistic- not remotely. If you talked to her she’d respond- if she felt like it. There was no echolalic speech, nothing psychotic. She was just very self-sufficient. From an amusement standpoint. She made her own fun.”

I watched the constantly blinking phones and self-shifting computer images. His fun.

“And she never kept any sort of diary?”

“No. She hated paper- threw everything out. Hated clutter, was a bug on neatness. Probably another example of genetics. I plead guilty to that kind of precision.”

He smiled, not looking guilty at all.

I said, “I saw only two games in her closet. What happened to all the toys and the books?”

“When she was thirteen she did a massive housecleaning, took everything out of her room except for her radio and her clothing, and piled it up in the hall- very neatly. When I asked her what she was doing, she insisted I get rid of it. So, of course, I did. Gave it to Goodwill. There was no arguing with Holly when she made her mind up.”

“She didn’t want anything to replace what she’d gotten rid of?”

“Not a thing. She was quite happy with nothing.”

“Nothing but Chutes and Ladders and Candy Land.”

“Yes. Those.” A split-second flinch. I snared it as if it were a moth.

“How old was she when she got those two games?”

“Five. They were bought for her fifth birthday by her mother.”

He flinched again, forced a smile. “You see, we’ve got an insight already. What do you make of it? An attempt on her part to cling to the past?”

His tone was clinical, detached- the classic intellectualizer. Trying to turn the interview into a chat between colleagues.

I said, “I’m not much for interpretation. Let’s talk about her relationship with her mother.”

“A Freudian approach?”

Trying to keep any edge out of my voice, I said, “A thorough one, Mr. Burden.”

He didn’t say anything. Turning slightly, he tapped his fingers on the keyboard. I waited, watched the letters and numbers on the monitor do their freeway crawl.

“So,” he finally said, “I guess this is what people in your field would call active listening? A strategic silence. Holding back to get the patient to open up?” He smiled. “I read about that too.”

I spoke with deliberate patience. “Mr. Burden, if this is uncomfortable for you, we don’t have to continue.”

“I want to continue!” He sat up sharply, without grace, and his glasses slid down his nose. By the time he’d righted them he was smiling again. “You’ll have to excuse my… I suppose you’d term it resistance. This whole thing has been… very difficult.”

“Of course it has. That’s why there’s no reason to cover everything at once. I can come back another time.”

“No, no, there’ll be no better time.” He looked away from me, touched the keyboard again. “Can I offer you something? Juice? Tea?”

“Nothing, thanks. If the things I’ve brought up are too hard for you to discuss right now, perhaps there’s some topic you’d like to get into?”

“No, no, let’s stay on track. Bite the bullet. Her mother. My wife. Elizabeth Wyman Burden. B. 1930, D. 1974.” He tilted his head back, gazed at the ceiling. “An exceptional woman. Deductive and intuitive and extremely talented- musically talented. She was very adept at the viola da gamba. Howard played the modern viola, seemed quite promising but dropped it. I helped Elizabeth develop her abilities. She complemented me beautifully.”

He twisted his mouth, as if searching for the right expression, settled on regret. “Holly was nothing like her, really. Nothing like me either, really. Both of us, Betty and myself, are- were- highly intelligent. That’s not a boast, simply a descriptive statement. As a couple, we were intellectually oriented. As is Howard. I saw early that he had a gift for mathematics and tutored him intensively- not remedial tutoring; he was always an excellent student. Supplementary tutoring, so that he wouldn’t sink to the level of the public school system- be dragged down to the lowest common denominator.”

“The school wasn’t meeting his needs?”

“Not by a long shot. I’m sure your experience has shown you the entire system’s oriented toward mediocrity. Howard thrived on what I gave him, stayed on the math track. He’s a graduate actuary, passed all ten exams the first time, which is almost unheard of. Youngest man in the state to do so. You should speak to him about Holly, get his point of view. Here, I’ll give you his number. He lives out in the Valley.”

He turned back toward his desk, took a small piece of paper out of a drawer, and scrawled on it.

I put it away.

He said, “Howard’s exceptionally bright.”

“But Holly wasn’t much of a student?”

He shook his head. “When she got C-minuses it was because of teacher charity.”