Set This House In Order Part 40

Adam, I thought, inwardly furious. "Well then," I told Penny, "I'm the one who should apologize to you."

"What happened inside?" Penny asked, eager to change the subject. "Did you find out what you needed to?"

"Not enough," I said. "I'm going to have to go back in -- don't worry, not right away. Later. And next time, I won't ask you to body-sit."

"No, it's all right," Penny said. "Just. . . maybe next time, we can unplug the TV."

The smell of vodka in the Centurion reminded me of something; I cupped a hand over my mouth and sniffed my own breath to see whether I'd been drinking. My breath smelled like. . . milk.

"Moo juice," I said.

"What?" said Penny.

"Nothing," I said. Then: "Do you ever get used to it? Waking up in weird situations, not knowing what the heck is going on?"

"I don't know," said Penny. "I mean, that's normal for me. I never had to get used to it."

I looked over at her. "You know I really am sorry, Penny."

"For what?"

"When Julie first suggested I help you. . . when you asked me for help. . . I almost said no. I tried to say no."

"That's all right. I tried to say no too, remember? Anyway, you did say yes."

"Yes, but. . ." But only because Julie wanted me to; I guessed I could be honest with myself about that now. "I'm sorry I didn't say yes sooner."

We were back in the motel parking lot now. We didn't go into the room right away, but stayed sitting in the car, too tired to move. Actually, I think Penny was more than just tired; her breath didn't smell like milk.

"So are we going back home now?" Penny said. She was asking out of curiosity, but I heard it as something more than that.

"You should go back, definitely," I told her, trying to sound encouraging.

"No." Penny shook her head. "It's not that I'm in a hurry to go back, I just wanted to know. If you still want to go on to Michigan, to see. . . to find out. . ."

To see what had happened to the stepfather. To find out whether Xavier Reyes had exterminated him.

". . . or maybe somewhere else," Penny continued. "If that's what you want to do, I don't mind taking you."

"I think," I said, rubbing my eyes, "I think I want to take a hot shower. And then maybe get some food, and try calling Mrs. Winslow again. And then, then I'll decide. . . is that OK?"

Penny nodded. "I think I'll wait out here while you take your shower, though," she said.

"Sure." I smiled. "I'll take care of the TV, too, while I'm in there."

The door to the motel room was unlocked, and inside the television was still on, still tuned to the s.e.x channel. "Adam," I said, exasperated. I didn't actually unplug the TV, but I did turn it off, and I also hid the remote control. Then I got undressed and went into the shower. I stood under the hot spray a long time, barely moving.

I found myself thinking about Billy Milligan.

Probably you've at least heard his name; though not quite as famous as Sybil or Eve White, he's one of the better-known MPD cases. Billy Milligan was a small-time drug dealer and thief who was arrested in 1977 for the kidnapping, robbery, and rape of three women. He pled not guilty by reason of insanity, claiming that the crimes had been committed by other souls over whom he, Billy, had no control.

After four different psychiatrists -- including Cornelia Wilbur, Sybil's doctor -- testified on his behalf, the court accepted the insanity defense.

He spent the next thirteen years in a succession of state mental hospitals. In 1991 he was p.r.o.nounced "cured" and released. Then in 1996 he was arrested again, this time for allegedly threatening a judge. That story made the news in Seattle, and piqued Julie's curiosity. She wound up borrowing my father's copy of The Minds of Bitty Milligan.

"Wow," Julie said, a few days later. "This is a really fascinating case."

"I suppose," I replied, without much enthusiasm.

"What?" said Julie. "You're not impressed?"

"Impressed? That's a funny word to use. He raped three people, Julie."

"Well, yes and no."

"Mostly yes -- especially from the point of view of the women who got raped."

"You think he faked being multiple?"

"No," I said. "I mean it's hard to know for sure just from reading a book, but I believe he probably was -- is -- a multiple personality. The court thought so. But he was also a rapist."

"Only part of him, though. Billy Milligan -- the soul called Billy -- was innocent."

"Well just because he's innocent doesn't mean he's not responsible," I said. I quoted my father: "When you're in charge of a household, you're accountable for the actions of every soul in that household, even if they do things you would never do yourself."

"But at the time the rapes took place," Julie argued, "Billy Milligan wasn't in charge. It sounds like n.o.body was -- his household was in chaos."

"Which is not very impressive."

"Jesus, Andrew. I didn't mean -- why are you being so weird about this?"

"I'm not being weird," I said. "I just don't think Billy Milligan is a credit to multiples everywhere.

He's like. . . the OJ. Simpson of the MPD community."

Julie laughed at that. "Still," she said, "it's not like he got off scot-free. And don't you think a hospital was really a better place for him than jail?"

"I think wherever they lock you up, thirteen years isn't enough time for raping somebody. . . or for allowing somebody to be raped."

Julie looked thoughtful. "What would you have done?"

"If I was in charge of Billy Milligan's case?"

"No," Julie said, "if you were Billy Milligan."

"Excuse me?"

"Suppose you found out that one of your other souls had. . . well, let's not say raped somebody, something less vile, like bank robbery. . ."

"Bank robbery?"

"Yeah. Suppose --"

"I'm not going to rob a bank, Julie."

"Not you. Another soul."

"n.o.body else in the house is going to rob a bank either. If anybody even tried something like that, my father would send them to the pumpkin field."

"Well let's say it happened back before the house was built," Julie persisted, "and you only just found out about it. Let's say you come across an, I don't know, a storage locker that belonged to some other soul before you were even born. You open it up, and inside you find a sack of money labeled 'Property of the First National Bank.' And there's also a gun, and a Ronald Reagan mask. . ."

"A Ronald Reagan mask?"

". . . or whatever kind of mask fas.h.i.+onable bank robbers were wearing ten years ago. You find all this, plus conclusive evidence that it was you -- your body -- that originally stashed the stuff in the locker. What would you do?"

"This is not something that would ever happen, Julie."

"I'm not saying that it is -- it's a hypothetical. But what would you do?"

I shrugged. "Call the police, I guess. Tell them what I'd found."

"Just like that?"

"What else could I do?"

"You'd just turn yourself in. . ."

"Well, I wouldn't necessarily be turning myself in. I mean, there might be another explanation. . .

but of course I'd have to tell the police about it, if I really thought the money was stolen."

"So you'd just throw yourself on the mercy of the cops. No hesitation."

"I'd accept responsibility for the body's actions. I might not want to -- maybe I would hesitate, a little -- but ultimately I'd have no choice. It's my job."

Julie was skeptical. "I don't know," she said. "That sounds very n.o.ble, but I think it's also pretty naive, expecting the police to treat you fairly just because you're straight with them. And if you were really facing prosecution for bank robbery --"

"But I'm not really facing it," I said, annoyed. "It's a hypothetical. And if you can hypothesize guns and Ronald Reagan masks, I can hypothesize living up to my obligations."

"Well that's another interesting question. How can you ever be certain it is just a hypothetical?"

"Julie --" I was starting to get mad now.

"I don't think you did rob a bank. I'd be very, very surprised if that were really true. But how can you be a hundred percent sure that, back before the house was built --"

"Adam did some shoplifting, back then," I told her. "And Seferis broke a man's finger in a bar fight once, although that was self-defense. And there were some other incidents -- petty crimes, and some misunderstandings -- involving various other souls. But no felonies, and definitely no unprovoked attacks on strangers."

"That you know of. . . but you've told me that there are still gaps in your information about those years, so --"

"No bank robbery-sized gaps."

"But how can you be sure?"

"Because if anything like that bad happened, my father would know about it. He'd have found out. That's his job, Julie."

"But --"

"Can we change the subject now, please?"

My father would know about it. . . That's his job, Julie. And it was. But it was also my father's job to know all the souls, to maintain order in the geography. . . and to be honest with me.

What if Xavier -- or Gideon -- had done something bad to the stepfather, something that my father either didn't know about or had chosen not to tell me?

In one sense, it was an easy question. What I'd told Julie was true: as the soul in charge of Andy Gage's body, I stood accountable for all the body's actions, past and present, even those I wasn't technically guilty of. It had to be that way, for reasons of both house discipline and simple good citizens.h.i.+p. You can't have crimes being committed and no one owning up to them.

Easy. But also hard, because this was no longer just a hypothetical case. As I considered the consequences I might have to accept if the worst proved true, I realized that at least one thing I'd told Julie was wrong: I wasn't just a little hesitant to take responsibility.

Suppose the worst was true: suppose Andy Gage had killed his stepfather, murdered him, and not in self-defense or in the heat of the moment, but in cold blood. How bad was that? Ordinarily, of course, I'd say that murder is one of the few acts that is worse than rape. But what about murdering a rapist? What about murdering your rapist? Is that worse? Revenge is not supposed to justify violence -- but couldn't it, if the thing being revenged was horrible enough?

It's not, I thought, like what Billy Milligan did. He became a predator in his own right, and hurt strangers, people who had never done anything to him. He made a habit of it. Andy Gage killing his stepfather would have been a one-time thing, a provoked, singular act, not part of a pattern.

Unless you counted what happened to Warren Lodge.

No. No. Don't think about him now. Focus on one killing -- one death -- at a time.

Come to that, I wasn't even sure the stepfather was dead. I thought he was -- it felt true -- but I couldn't recall ever specifically having been told it was so. I should really check on that, before I got too worked up about this. I should also find out how he died -- if he'd had a heart attack, or cancer, I'd obviously be off the hook.

Or maybe I shouldn't find out.

What I didn't know, I couldn't take responsibility for: a flawed but attractive piece of reasoning.

If Xavier had done something to the stepfather, it would have to have been several years ago, probably at least five. After that much time, it was unlikely the truth would come looking for me unless I went looking for it first. What if I decided to just let it be?

It wouldn't even have to be a permanent decision. I could just go back to Autumn Creek for the time being, and defer all questions about Michigan, and what might or might not have happened there, until after I got the house restabilized. . . however long that took. If the stepfather was dead he wasn't going anywhere; I could always take responsibility later.

Tempting. Tempting.

But.

Before getting into the shower, I'd unwrapped the gauze from around my arm. The wounds from the barbed wire had scabbed over, but they still stung beneath the hot spray. I studied them, then turned my hand over and looked at the old puncture-mark scar on Andy Gage's palm. My father had done that, during his last fight with Gideon.

It had happened at a diner -- not the Harvest Moon, but another one, closer to Bit Warehouse.

My father had just finished lunch and was settling the bill when Gideon tried to seize control. This was no ordinary takeover attempt: Gideon meant to put my father down permanently, and my father, recognizing the seriousness of Gideon's intent, was forced to take drastic action. He lifted up his arm and -- to the horror of the diner cas.h.i.+er -- impaled his hand on the receipt spike beside the cash register. It won him the battle.

Maybe you don't understand that (although, by now, maybe you do). Dominance, in a multiple household, is all about being able to endure more trauma than anybody else. The more a particular soul can resist the impulse to switch, the more it gains power over those that can't. By spiking his hand, my father demonstrated not only that he was able to withstand great pain, but that he had the courage to inflict it on himself if need be. Gideon, meanwhile, couldn't even take the pain; and while it may seem like cheating that my father had chosen a source of pain that Gideon was especially sensitive to, this was not a contest where fairness mattered.

So my father won the struggle for control, and, in winning, gained enough power over Gideon to confine him to Coventry. Then later, when he called me out of the lake and gave up running the body, my father's power was weakened; that, plus my own show of weakness two nights ago, was probably what had given Gideon the lat.i.tude he needed to sneak off the island.