Vortex

“They say so, yes, ma’am. Officer Bose says she’s coming by bus, to get me. That’s a long trip, that bus trip. Hot this time of year I expect. Ariel don’t care for hot weather.”

She would have to ask Bose about that. Usually, if a family member was willing to assume responsibility, there was no need for a vag case to end up in State Care. There were no violent acts in Orrin’s arrest record, and he was clearly aware of his situation, not obviously delusional. At least not at the moment. Though there was something uncanny about him, Sandra thought. (An unprofessional observation, which she would not record in her notes.)

She began with the standard interview from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Did he know the date and so forth. Most of his answers were straightforward and coherent. But when she asked him whether he heard voices, Orrin hesitated. “Guess I don’t,” he said at last.

“Are you sure? It’s okay to talk about these things. If there’s a problem, we want to help you with it.”

He nodded earnestly. “I know that. It’s a hard question, though. I don’t hear voices, ma’am, no, not exactly… but I write things sometimes.”

“What kind of things?”

“Things I don’t always understand.”

Here, then, was the entry point.

Sandra added a note to Orrin’s file— poss. delusions, written —for later exploration. Then, because the subject was obviously distressing to him, she smiled and said, “Well, that’s enough for now.” Half an hour had passed. “We’ll talk again soon. I’ll have an orderly escort you to the room where you’ll be staying over the next few days.”

“I’m sure it’s very nice.”

Compared to the back alleys of urban Houston, maybe it would be. “The first day at State can be hard for some people, but trust me, it’s not as bad as seems. Evening meals are at six in the commissary.”

Orrin looked doubtful. “Is that like a cafeteria?”

“Yes.”

“Can I ask you, is it loud in there? I don’t care for noise when I eat.”

The patient commissary was a zoo and generally sounded like one, though the staff made sure it was safe. Sensitivity to noise, Sandra added to her notes. “It can get a little loud, yes. Do you think you can deal with it?”

He gave her a downcast look but nodded. “I’ll try. Thank you for warning me up front—I appreciate it.”

One more lost soul, more fragile and less combative than most. Sandra hoped a week in State would do Orrin Mather more good than harm. But she wouldn’t have cared to lay odds on it.

* * *

The remanding officer was still waiting when she left the interview room, much to Sandra’s surprise. It was customary for cops to dump a case and walk away. State Care had begun its institutional existence as a means of relieving the overloaded prison system during the worst years of the Spin and after. That emergency had ended a quarter of a century ago, but State still served as a dumping ground for trivial offenders with obvious head issues. It was a convenient arrangement for the police, less so for the overextended and underfunded State Care staff. There was seldom any follow-up from law enforcement. As far as the police were concerned, a transfer was a closed file —or worse, a flushed toilet.

Bose’s HPD uniform was crisp despite the heat. He started to ask her about her impressions of Orrin Mather, but because it was past time for lunch, and her afternoon schedule was heavily booked, Sandra invited him to join her in the cafeteria—the staff cafeteria, not the patient commissary Orrin Mather would almost certainly find distressing.

She took her usual Monday soup and salad and waited while Bose did the same. It was late enough that they had no trouble finding a free table. “I want to do some follow-up on Orrin,” Bose said.

“That’s a new one.”

“Excuse me?”

“We don’t generally get a whole lot of follow-up from HPD.”

“I guess not. But there are some unanswered questions in Orrin’s case.”

It was “Orrin,” she noticed, not “the prisoner” or “the patient.” Clearly, Officer Bose had taken a personal interest. “I didn’t see anything too unusual in his file.”

“His name came up in connection with another case. I can’t talk about that in any detail, but I wanted to ask… did he mention anything about his writing?”

Sandra’s interest ticked up a notch. “Very briefly, yes.”

“When he was taken into custody Orrin was carrying a leather satchel with a dozen lined notebooks inside, all of them filled with writing. That’s what he was defending when he was attacked. Orrin’s generally a cooperative guy, but we had to struggle to get the notebooks away from him. He needed to be reassured that we’d keep them safe and give them back as soon as his case was resolved.”

“And did you? Give them back, I mean?”

“Not yet, no.”

“Because if Orrin is so concerned with those notebooks they might be pertinent to my evaluation.”

“I understand that, Dr. Cole. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. The thing is, the contents are relevant to another case HPD is dealing with. I’m having them transcribed, but it’s a slow process—Orrin’s handwriting isn’t easy to decipher.”

“Can I see the transcripts?”

“That’s what I came here to suggest. But I need to ask a favor of you in return. Until you’ve looked at the whole document, can we keep this matter out of official channels?”

It was an odd request and she hesitated before answering. “I’m not sure what you mean by official channels. Any pertinent observation goes into Orrin’s evaluation. That’s nonnegotiable.”

“You can make any observation you like, as long as you don’t copy or quote directly from the notebooks. Just until we resolve certain issues.”

“Orrin’s under my care for just seven days, Officer Bose. At the end of that time I have to submit a recommendation.” A recommendation that would change Orrin Mather’s life drastically, she did not add.

“I understand, and I’m not trying to interfere. Your evaluation is what I’m interested in. What I’d like to get from you, informally, is your opinion of what Orrin wrote. Specifically the reliability of it.”

At last Sandra began to understand. Something Orrin had written was potential evidence in a pending case, and Bose needed to know how trustworthy it (or its author) was. “If you’re asking me for testimony in a legal proceeding—”

“No, nothing like that. Just a back-channel opinion. Anything you can tell me that doesn’t violate patient confidentiality or any other professional concerns you have.”

“I’m not sure—”

“You might understand a little better once you’ve read the document.”

It was Bose’s earnestness that finally persuaded her to agree, at least tentatively. And she was genuinely curious about the notebooks and Orrin’s attachment to them. If she discovered something clinically relevant she would feel no compunction about disregarding any promise she made to Bose. Her first loyalty was to her patient, and she made sure he understood that.

He accepted her conditions without complaint. Then he stood up. He had left his salad unfinished, a bed of lettuce from which he had systematically extracted all the cherry tomatoes. “Thanks, Dr. Cole. I appreciate your help. I’ll email you the first pages tonight.”

He gave her an HPD card with his phone and an email address and his full name: Jefferson Amrit Bose. She repeated it to herself as she watched him disappear into a throng of white-clad clinicians at the commissary door.

* * *

After a day of routine consultations Sandra drove home under the long light of the setting sun.