looks normal.”
He selected a carving knife from a group in a drawer, and began slicing off half-inch sections. “No hemorrhage, no tumors, no infection. The NMR scanner was right again.”
“I was wondering if I could ask a favor,” Victor said.
“Would it be at all possible for me to take a sample back to my own lab to have it processed?”
Dr. Shryack shrugged. “I suppose, but I wouldn’t want it to become common knowledge. It would be a great thing to get into the Boston Globe that we’re giving out brain tissue. I wonder what that would do to our autopsy percentage?”
“I won’t tell a soul.”
“You want this case, which I think is the Hobbs kid, or do you want the other one?” Dr. Shryack asked.
“Both, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“I suppose giving you two specimens is no different than giving you one,” said Dr. Shryack.
“Have you done the gross on the internal organs yet?”
asked Victor.
“Not yet,” Shryack said. “That’s next on the agenda. Want to watch?”
Victor shrugged. “Why not. I’m here.”
VJ was even less communicative on the ride back to Lawrence than he’d been on the ride into Boston that morning.
He was obviously mad about the whole situation, and Marsha wondered if he would be cooperative enough to make psychological testing worthwhile.
She parked across from her office. They waited for the elevator even though they were going up only one floor because the stairwell door was locked from the inside. “I know you’re angry,” Marsha said. “But I do want you to take some psychological tests, yet it’s not worth your time or Jean’s unless you cooperate. Do I make myself clear?”
“Perfectly,” VJ said crisply, fixing Marsha with his dazzlingly blue eyes.
“Well, will you cooperate?” she asked as the elevator doors opened.
VJ nodded coldly.
Jean was overjoyed to see them. She’d had a terrible time juggling Marsha’s patients, but she’d managed in her usual efficient way.
As for VJ, she was really happy to see him, even though he greeted her without much enthusiasm, then excused himself to use the bathroom.
“He’s a bit out of sorts,” Marsha explained. She went on to tell Jean about the neuro work-up and her desire to have him take their basic battery of psychological tests.
“It will be hard for me to do it today,” Jean said. “With you out all morning the phone has been ringing off the hook.”
“Let the service handle the phone,” Marsha advised. “It’s important I get VJ tested.”
Jean nodded and immediately began getting out the forms and preparing their computer to grade and correlate the results.
When VJ returned from the bathroom, Jean had him sit right down at the keyboard. Since he was familiar with some of the tests, she asked him which kind he wanted to take first.
“Let’s start with the intelligence tests,” VJ said agreeably.
For the next hour and a half, Jean administered the WAIS-R
intelligence test, which included six verbal and five performance subtests. From her experience she knew that VJ
was doing well, but nowhere near what he’d done seven years previously. She also noted that VJ tended to hesitate before he answered a question or performed a task. It was like he wanted to be doubly sure of his choice.
“Very good!” Jean said when they’d reached the completion.
“Now how about the personality test?”
“Is that the MMPI?” VJ asked. “Or the MCMI?”
“I’m impressed,” Jean said. “Sounds like you have been doing a little reading.”
“It’s easy when one of your parents is a psychiatrist,” VJ
said.
“We use both, but let’s start with the MMPI,” Jean said.
“You don’t need me for this. It’s all multiple choice. If you have any problems, just yell.”
Jean left VJ in the testing room, and went back to the reception desk. She called the service and got the pile of messages that had accumulated. She attended to the ones that she could and when Marsha’s patient left, gave her the messages she had to handle herself.
“How’s VJ doing?” Marsha asked.
“Couldn’t be better,” Jean reported.
“He’s being cooperative?” Marsha asked.
“Like a lamb,” Jean said. “In fact, he seems to be enjoying himself.”
Marsha shook her head in amazement. “Must be you. He was in an awful mood with me.”
Jean took it as a compliment. “He’s had a WAIS-R and he’s in the middle of an MMPI. What other tests do you want? A Rorschach and a Thematic Apperception Test or what?”
Marsha chewed on her thumbnail for a moment, thinking.
“Why don’t we do that TAT and let the Rorschach go for now.
We can always do it later.”
“I’ll be happy to do both,” Jean said.
“Let’s just do the TAT,” Marsha said as she picked up the next chart. “VJ’s in a good mood but why push it? Besides, it might be interesting to cross check the TAT and the Rorschach if they are taken on different days.” She called the patient whose chart she was holding and disappeared for another session.
After Jean finished as much paperwork as she could, she returned to the testing room. VJ was absorbed in the personality test.
“Any problems?” Jean asked.
“Some of these questions are too much,” VJ said with a laugh. “A couple of them have no appropriate answers.”
“The idea is to select the best one possible,” Jean said.
“I know,” VJ said. “That’s what I’m doing.”
At noon, they broke for lunch and walked to the hospital.
They ate in the coffee shop. Marsha and Jean had tuna salad sandwiches while VJ had a hamburger and a shake. Marsha noted with contentment that VJ’s attitude had indeed changed. She began to think she had worried for nothing; the tests he was taking would probably result in a healthy psychological portrait. She was dying to ask Jean about the results so far, but she knew she couldn’t in front of VJ. Within thirty minutes they were all back at their respective tasks.
An hour later, Jean put the phone back on service and returned to the testing room. Just as she closed the door behind her, VJ spoke up: “There,” he said, clicking the last question. “All done.”
“Very good,” Jean said, impressed. VJ had gone through the five hundred and fifty questions in half the usual time.
“Would you like to rest before the next test?” she asked.
“Let’s get it over with,” VJ said.
For ninety minutes, Jean showed the TAT cards to VJ. Each contained a black and white picture of people in circumstances that elicited responses having psychological overtones. VJ was asked to describe what he thought was going on in each picture and how the people felt. The idea was for VJ to project his fantasies, feelings, patterns of relationships, needs, and conflicts.
