Mira smiled at him. “You can have your soda, and maybe some ice cream if we can talk to Andy.”
“Chocolate ice cream!”
“A whole bowl.”
Like a light switch, Dawber’s face changed. He blinked his eyes. “I’m sorry, what was I saying?”
Mira looked at Eve. “You were right.” Then she folded her hands, addressed Dawber. “That was much too rushed. Scientist to scientist? I have no doubt you’re aware that multiple personality disorder is very rare.”
“I don’t know what—”
“Quiet,” Eve ordered. “Let her finish.”
“There are cases, of course,” Mira continued. “Well-documented, carefully studied. And I’m sure, Mr. Dawber, with some careful study, we’ll find the neglected and unhappy child you were has great influence on the man you are. It may be that you find some emotional release by allowing yourself to behave like that child, permitting the child to say and do what the mature and disciplined man can’t, or wouldn’t until last fall.”
“I don’t know what you mean. Dr. Mira, I know you have a sterling reputation.”
The meek and mild might have worked, Eve thought, but he piled it on too thick. Desperate—and she saw the desperate—to compensate.
“I think—I admit that over the past months I’ve had some incidents. Some gaps in memory, but…”
“You moved out of your apartment and into the brownstone on October first,” Eve repeated. “Explain.”
“I didn’t. I don’t … I don’t know.”
Eve shoved the log, his own log, detailing his travel, his hotel in New Orleans. “Explain this. Explain the trip you took to Louisiana in December of last year and the information, including photographs, of this woman. Your niece.”
“I don’t have a niece. I’m an only child. I certainly didn’t go to Louisiana. I have very bad memories of that area. I was found there, at age five. I was a foundling, and put into the foster system until I was adopted.”
Another mistake, Eve thought. A bratty five-year-old couldn’t book the travel, take the trip, document it all.
“You have three half siblings. After your mother tossed you aside, she hooked a rich doctor and had kids she decided to keep.”
His head snapped back as if she’d slapped him, but he couldn’t quite disguise the fury that burned in his eyes.
“That’s a vicious thing to say. You’re a vicious person. Something happened to my mother, that’s the only explanation. She would never have left me if she had a choice.”
“Shakier ground,” Eve said, because his hands had started to tremble. “She didn’t want you, couldn’t wait to ditch the whiny brat holding her back. So she dumped you and drove away. Never gave you another thought.”
“That’s a lie!”
There you are, Eve thought, when the fury, full-blown now, raged in his eyes.
“Pure truth. Who wants to listen to some snotty brat throwing tantrums, demanding candy and ice cream? Tossing you aside was her best shot at real freedom. So she walked away, and probably wondered why she hadn’t done it years before.”
“Lies! Lies! She loved me. She was young and weak, an addict, but I’m the one she loved. She left me to save me. She was wrong, wrong, wrong, and I can have her back my way. I deserve it. She thought she could make it up to me—all those years—with a house, with money. She was supposed to stay with me, look after me, and I’ll fix it so she has to. I deserve to have my mother.”
Peabody shot Eve a look, then rose.
“Peabody exiting Interview.” Eve pushed the tube of soda toward Dawber. “It must have been a hell of a shock, getting that letter.”
He cracked the tube, drank thirstily. He smiled, but the calculation showed through. “What letter?”
“The bullshit letter she wrote you to try to ease her guilty conscience before she swallowed a bunch of pills. Killed herself, not over you, Dawber, but over the father of her real children.”
He heaved the tube at Eve. She snagged it in midair. “That’s a weak arm, pal. No wonder she shrugged you off.”
“I’m her son. I’m her only. The rest are fakes and lies.”
“She doted on them, but not you. She cared more about getting high than you, more about living her new life than you.”
“I want my mommy.” Pulling out the little boy again, Dawber laid his head on the table and wept. “I want my ice cream, I want my mommy.”