Chapter 5

The monotonous rat-tat-tat of the rain’s downpour drummed its quick rhythm against the window of George Carmichael’s study. With the constant accompaniment of the deep, bass thunder and its pale, white lightning hands, the world outside screamed chaos into the night. As Joe stared at the increasing drama that unfolded over the landscape beyond the house, the tall grandfather clock in the far corner of the room ticked away its unchanging ticks and tocks. A deafening roar echoed overhead as a quick streak of electric current ripped a tree from its roots and toppled it across the lawn, which was already beginning to fill with loose debris.

“The wrath of God,” George whispered with a morbid lack of emotion. He stood with his shoulder resting against the long frame of the window and watched as his once beautiful and well kept yard fell to ruin. The steam from the white ceramic mug in his left hand wafted into the curves of his face before rising further to nothingness.

“Some have said this is our last year. I couldn’t even humor the idea, although I’m sure that something big is on its way. Some tide of change. From the looks of the world around us, it can’t be good.”

Joe cleared his throat. “Maybe it’s not our place to even wonder about it. It’s far beyond our comprehension. It would be better for us to address the issues at hand. We need to talk about Grady.” His attention shifted to the warden’s face as he stared far from Pine Haven. George turned to face Joe and nodded. He pulled the leather arm chair from beneath his desk and dropped his body into its seat.

“I invited you over to inform you that Grady has asked to see you tomorrow.”

George’s face drooped as he paused in thought. “But you know that I can’t promise it will be him and not the other.”

“I have faith,” Joe interjected with a sly grin.

“I hope it’s enough for your sake.” He pointed to Joe’s hand which held the black and blue shine of the bruises that had been formed by Grady’s fingers. Joe clenched and unclenched his fist, grimacing at the pain that flashed through his hand as he did so.

“You know that you got off lucky, right?”

Joe nodded with detached brevity. As the silence that followed hung thick like a cold dense fog, he contemplated what could have happened at his first meeting with Grady. He was lucky to still be alive. It would have been easy for the prisoner to have ended his professional as well as his physical careers before anyone else realized what was happening. Judging from his monstrous bulk, Joe figured that Grady could have pulled his head from his shoulders with the same exertion of a small child picking strawberries. With that image, a cold shiver tickled his spine.

George broke the silence. Clearing his throat as he readjusted in his seat, he smiled into Joe’s face. “You said that you have some questions for me?”

Joe nodded. “Yes, I do have a couple.” The loud, authoritative boom of a thunderclap echoed in the sky outside the window as the bright accompanying flash filled the room with a sudden blinding light before fading to nothing. The thick droplets of water fell faster and louder as they collided against the clear pane of glass. George jumped from his seat with a quick grunt as Joe made the mistake of clenching his right hand around the arm of his chair. The pain shot through his fingers and up his arm, to cause a soft yelp to escape his dry lips. George turned back to his companion with an expression of sincere worry weighing on his face, but Joe greeted him with a comical grin. George chuckled and let his weight fall back into the brown leather chair.

“Please continue,” George gestured with his hand as he spoke. The deep, warm smile was still pasted over his face and showed a gleaming row of pearl white teeth.

Joe opened his black spiral notebook and laid it across his lap, clicking his pen as he glanced across his notes.

“I am confused about Jess’s first appearance. There was no report documenting when the distinctive alter personality presented itself. I would like to speak with Dr. Deily about it if I could.”

“Dr. Deily won’t be available to answer questions. As I’m sure you will want to know why, I will save you the trouble of asking. It will probably answer your other question anyway. Ben was a very talented psychologist. He served the prison since it opened and was a close, personal friend of mine. But he was impatient. He had that drive—the same one that you have. It cost him his life.”

Joe tried to interject a few choice words, but George ignored him and continued.

“He wasn’t ready to meet Jess. He had this feeling that there was something dark inside of Grady. As you could probably tell from Ben’s evaluations, Grady was falling apart. He was beginning to mumble to himself and grew more detached and paranoid. Every whisper made him edgy. It was a bad situation for everyone involved. I decided to sit in on one of his evaluations to see how things were going between the two of them. During the session, Grady was no longer jumpy. He stared coolly and calmly into Ben’s eyes as he spoke and, to tell you the absolute truth, he scared me. Something in his eyes was missing. It was like his soul had been taken in his sleep. His face was a cold, black emotionless void and looking into it was like staring into Hell. It was more than enough to drive a man insane.”

He paused and took a sip from his mug. With the soft grunt of his throat clearing, he continued.

“I don’t remember what the question was that Ben asked Grady. I don’t really think it matters much. The next thing I knew, he had attached himself to the psychologist’s face and the room was filled with the most blood chilling screams I have ever heard. I jumped on him, but he tossed me away like a gnat. He just flicked me across the room and when I hit the ground I fell into immediate shock. I was frozen stiff, staring at the horrible scene as Grady, Jess…whoever he was, proceeded to tear my friend’s eye from its socket with ease and there it was—that large beast with another man’s eyeball in the center of his palm like a wet marble. The screams had stopped. Ben was dead by the time we got him to the hospital.”

“Dear God!” Joe’s eyes were wide and unblinking as his jaw hung loose on its hinge.

“That’s not even half of it, Joe. I’m not a small man by any means, but he tossed me away as if I were a rag doll. He could have walked out of the prison and no one would have been able to stop him. He could have killed me too. Instead, he stared at me with those empty eyes and that sick, morbid grin, holding his arms out in front of him. He stood in that same position until the guards came and cuffed him. After that, he walked to his cell without a word and laid himself on his bed. We didn’t hear another peep from him until Grady came back a few days later. It makes about the same amount of sense now as it did then. I mean, how do things like that happen?”

Joe closed his eyes and shook his head. It didn’t make sense to him either.

“What about the army’s report? There wasn’t an arrest record or anything in the file.” Joe’s voice wavered and echoed in his own ears as he spoke.

George paused to choose his words with care. “The Army has already forgotten that Grady Perlson was ever a soldier. They passed the buck to us and we never heard from them again. What kind of publicity could they get from this case? Definitely not anything favorable. I probably could have pressed the issue, but it was out of my hands. They knew that Pine Haven’s business would always be Pine Haven’s business. Their secret little misfit would be safe here.”

“Fair enough,” Joe shrugged. It had not been an important factor in the case, but he had to ask for the sake of his own curiosity. “You know as well as I do George, that in the case of Dissociative Identity Disorders, diagnosis is a tricky concept and is almost impossible. Sure, Jess could be a genuine alter personality, but on the other hand Grady could be a sociopath. If I diagnose him, he would be taken to a hospital and admitted as a patient. He could be faking the whole thing to ensure his being institutionalized rather than imprisoned. Just because he’s vicious, it doesn’t make him insane. The biggest tip off for me to diagnose someone as having DID is that the disorder is the result of some emotional trauma that was usually suffered at a young age. The brain can handle so much, then the person creates a sort of alter ego. If he has another personality, then where did it come from? What trauma produced that sadistic being?”

George drew in a deep breath and expelled it with a sigh. His eyelids came together and left two small slits for him to peer through. His head shook—first to the left, then to the right.

“I don’t know Joe. Honestly, I don’t. But if there is anything out there that can prove your theories, it is this case. I was almost ready to let the bastard rot before you came here. Maybe I believe in you more than I should. You are a perceptive and intelligent doctor. He asked for you by name. I don’t know what kind of trauma his poor mind may have experienced, but I think this is what he means to tell you. Perhaps that is why you are here.”