Cold Vengeance - Lincoln Child [80]
Felder tented his fingers. “How odd. In my experience, her memory has been excellent.”
“Interesting. The amnesia is both dissociative and lacunar.”
Felder began taking notes.
“What I find most interesting is that there are strong indications that this may be a rare case of dissociative fugue.”
“Which might explain, for example, the ocean voyage?” Felder was still writing.
“Exactly—as well as the inexplicable outburst of violence. Which is why, Dr. Felder, I termed this case unique. I think we have a chance—you have a chance—to substantially advance medical knowledge here.”
Felder scribbled faster.
Esterhazy shifted in his chair. “I often wondered if her, ah, unusual personal relationships might have been a factor in her disorder.”
“You mean, her guardian? This fellow Pendergast?”
“Well…” Esterhazy seemed to hesitate. “It is true that guardian is the term Pendergast uses. However—speaking as one doctor to another, you understand—the relationship has been a great deal more intimate than that term would suggest. Which may explain why Pendergast—or so I understand—declined to show up at her competency hearing.”
Dr. Felder stopped scribbling and looked up. Esterhazy nodded, slowly and significantly.
“That is very interesting,” Felder said. “She denies it quite specifically.”
“Naturally,” Esterhazy replied in a low voice.
“You know—” Felder stopped a moment, as if considering something. “If there was some severe emotional trauma, sexual coercion or even abuse, it might not only explain that fugue state, but her strange ideas about her past.”
“Strange ideas about the past?” Esterhazy said. “That must be a new development.”
“Constance has been insisting to me that—well, not to put too fine a point to it, Dr. Poole—that she is roughly one hundred and forty years old.”
It was all Esterhazy could do to keep a straight face. “Indeed?” he managed.
Felder nodded. “She maintains she was born in the 1870s. That she grew up on Water Street, just blocks from where we are now. That both her parents died when she was young and she lived for years and years in a mansion owned by a man named Leng.”
Esterhazy quickly followed up this line. “That could be the other side of the coin of her dissociative amnesia and fugue state.”
“The thing of it is, her knowledge of the past—at least the period in which she maintains she grew up—is remarkably vivid. And accurate.”
What utter rubbish. “Constance is an unusually intelligent—if troubled—person.”
Felder looked thoughtfully at his notes for a moment. Then he glanced at Esterhazy. “Doctor, could I ask you a favor?”
“Of course.”
“Would you consider consulting with me on the case?”
“I would be delighted.”
“I would welcome a second opinion. Your past experience with the patient and your observations would no doubt prove invaluable.”
Esterhazy felt a shiver of joy. “I’m only in New York a week or two, up at Columbia—but I would be happy to lend what assistance I can.”
For the first time, Dr. Felder smiled.
“Given the lacunar amnesia I mentioned,” Esterhazy said, “it would be better to introduce me to her as if we have not met before. Then we can observe her response. It will be interesting to see if the amnesia has persisted through her fugue state.”
“Interesting indeed.”
“I understand she’s currently in residence at Mount Mercy?”
“That is correct.”
“And I assume you can arrange to get me the necessary consulting status there?”
“I believe so. Of course, I’ll need your CV, institutional affiliation, the usual paperwork…” And here Felder’s voice trailed off in embarrassment.
“Certainly! As it happens, I believe I have all the necessary paperwork here. I brought it along for the staff at Columbia.” Opening his briefcase, he extracted a folder containing a beautifully forged set of accreditations and