“So are you going to tell Grace about your conclusion?” Whitmore’s eyes moved a little.
“She won’t take it well,” said Mitch. “But as I see it, no matter the diagnosis, without the ability to show a psychotic break, it will be a long shot to prove her not guilty by reason of insanity.”
“I think ‘won’t take it well’ is soft-shoeing it a bit,” said Whitmore. “Grace wants you to unequivocally denounce Palumbo’s diagnosis and go with DID. I spoke to her on the phone the other day. She thinks there’s a hidden alter that may be an avenger-type personality. That Rachel abused Penny in the past, and seeing her for the first time in years unearthed some repressed memories that caused this alter to come out and, well … we all know the rest. Has she spoken to you about that?”
A wave of sadness tore through Mitch. He had wanted to do more for Grace, and he had let her down.
“We’ve discussed it at length. I have no proof of an avenger-type alter, or of any abuse or traumatic experience that Penny may have suffered that would have contributed to her developing DID. None whatsoever. I’m afraid Grace might be suffering delusions of her own.”
That seemed to pique Whitmore’s interest. “How so?”
“She called me, too, but with a new theory,” Mitch said. “Apparently, she found out that Vince Rapino, Rachel’s boyfriend, wears an anchor pendant necklace.”
Whitmore stared back blankly.
“Penny has a thing for anchors,” Mitch clarified. “She had a necklace that she remembered from when she was a little girl living with Rachel. Grace is quite in tune with her daughter’s feelings, and began buying these pendants for Penny as birthday presents and such. It’s become something of a totem for her. Chloe, the perfectionist alter, even uses anchor symbols to sign her name on her artwork, which is how we reached her. It’s a powerful motif for her, that’s for sure.”
Mitch didn’t have the drawing Chloe made on his person, but he did have pictures of it on his phone. He showed Whitmore the scene she’d drawn: the house; the tire swing attached by a brown crayon-line rope to a tree on a wide green lawn; a woman with Xs for eyes near a jug of what he presumed to be ammonia; and a little girl in an upstairs room getting ready to take a bath. She’d been drawn with an anchor pendant around her neck, holding a blue square—probably that missing book featuring water and boats.
“Grace thinks Rapino might be Penny’s birth father,” Mitch added. “And she either had a matching necklace like his, or she saw it draped around his neck way back then. If you think like Grace, Penny may have seen it again when Vince was killing Rachel.”
Whitmore’s eyes widened with surprise. “So she thinks Rapino is the killer?”
“Either that or Penny’s friend Maria is somehow involved. She’s grasping here,” Mitch said. “Not that I can blame her. She’s doing what any parent would do, what I would do, fighting for every inch on the battlefield.”
“But she’s going to lose the battle?” Whitmore’s mouth formed a tight-lipped frown.
“No,” said Mitch. “She’s going to lose the war.”
A knock on the office door drew both Mitch’s and Whitmore’s attention.
“Come in,” Whitmore said gruffly.
A correction officer entered, holding a large white envelope in his right hand. “This came into the mail room marked ‘Urgent,’” he said, striding over to her desk. “You said you wanted anything marked ‘Urgent’ brought to you right away.”
“Indeed,” Whitmore said, taking the envelope from him. He remained standing by her desk.
“This isn’t the army. You don’t need me to dismiss you.”
The CO gave a nod and departed quickly as Whitmore opened the envelope. She took out a familiar file folder, and Mitch remembered her instructions regarding its contents. The Edgewater mailroom wasn’t the most efficient, Whitmore had cautioned, so Mitch had the medical examiner reviewing Penny’s file send it back to Whitmore’s attention, not his. It was also marked “Urgent” to ensure proper delivery of the important documents.
“Give me a moment, will you?” Whitmore said, leafing through the pages. The ME might have been Mitch’s contact, but it was Whitmore’s prerogative to have the first look.
Mitch took the opportunity to text Caitlyn, who’d gone to Clean Start to have a visit with Adam. If this were old times, they’d have wine with dinner that night and talk about the case. She’d listen carefully, encourage him, and make him feel like everything was going to be okay. But Mitch wasn’t so sure—not with Adam, or with Penny. What if his diagnosis was wrong? Could Penny be a true case of DID? Could there be a fourth alter, an avenger type, someone else locked inside her—a boy, a girl, young or old, black or white, a person within a person who carried the darkest of intentions—someone Mitch had failed to reach?