Aaron Luke Stampler found himself clutching the bars of his holding cell. He could smell the familiar lingering scent of Martin Vail's soap and aftershave and hear the retreating steps of someone carrying a set of keys, the sharp familiar jangle of the keys rang a counterpoint to each step. His throat felt slightly raw as though he'd been shouted and his knuckles were white from the effort of clutching the bars. He blinked and released his grip. He had lost time again. He remembered Vail coming in and telling him the trial was over and then…
He shook his head and slowly retreated to his cot. He had lost time… Molly had explained what that meant. Aaron wasn't stupid, people often assumed he was. Between his hick accent and stutter it was an easy assumption to make, but he was not a stupid person by any means.
So Roy had made an appearance. Again. He had hoped, would have prayed had he any faith left, that Roy's outburst in the courtroom was the last of him. He felt his eyes grow hot, a lump filled his throat but he refused to let the tears blinding him fall.
Then he was in chains in the back of a vehicle, road noise drifting up from the floor, the tinny distorted sound of a radio playing from the front. He blinked and lifted his hands, the chain between the manacles rattled drawing the attention of a dozing guard.
"You decide to play nice Mr. Stampler?" The well-built man asked.
"S-sorry ." Aaron stammered. His head hurt.
"Oh it's you. Your friend was here a while ago."
"R-roy's n-ot my friend." Aaron said emphatically.
"Whatever kid, none of my business, I'm just here to get you to Elgin."
Aaron felt bone tired, beyond exhausted. He could hardly muster the energy to wonder about their destination.
Days later, riding a wave of tranquilizers and other medications Aaron sat down for his first session. Molly would be present at first but would bow out over time to allow the attending expert to take over. Aaron knew they were hoping to speed along his transference and jump start the 'healing'. But of course, so did Roy.
The headaches were constant now. Aaron would come to and find himself in a chair, bound by large padded straps or swimming up from a haze of tranquilizers and find bruises on his arms and legs.
After a while Molly stopped coming and then, one day, Aaron realized the usual haze of drugs wasn't present. He was sitting on his bed, a locked door between him and the world. Then the door opened, light from the hallway flooded in and for a moment he was half blinded. As his vision cleared a familiar silhouette faced him.
"M-mister Vail?" Aaron asked utterly stunned.
"Cut the shit Aaron." Vail snarled.
Aaron shrank from Vail's wrath. Eyes wide and bloodshot he stared slack jawed as the barrage continued.
"I'm only here because I'm on the record as your lawyer Stampler, I haven't told Molly about your act because I can't but I am not your friend."
"M-mister –"
"Shut the fuck up you little shit. Molly asked me to come here as a favor and I have some paperwork you have to read and sign."
"M-Molly –"
"I don't want to hear a damn word from you." Vail hissed and thrust a file folder and pen at Aaron.
"M-mister Vail I-I don't know w-what you're talkin' about." Aaron protested.
Vail glared down at Stampler, arms folded, and let out a slow breath. Could he believe him? Should he? He had never been able to question Molly about the specifics of his conversation with Stampler the day the trial had ended, so he had constant nagging doubts.
Vail licked his lips and set his fists on his hips, stared down at Aaron, at the bewildered choir boy face of a near-serial killer.
"Aaron what happened in court the day the trial ended?"
"Miss Venable was askin' me questions and then… I was bein' carried by guards...no bailiffs, and…and then I was in the cell and you came, you said everything was gonna be okay but my head hurt. It hurt so bad Mister Vail." Aaron stammered face pale but insistent.
Vail allowed himself to consider the possibility that maybe Roy had been fucking with him. Could that be it?
"Do you remember anything else Aaron?"
"I-I l-lost time again and you was gone. I was holding onto the cell bars real tight and you were gone." Aaron said brokenly, his usually solid grammar crumbling.
"Aaron listen to me. You told me that you were putting on an act. You laughed at me; you told me that there had never been an Aaron just Roy."
"Hoo boy and you believed me too didn't yeah Marty?" Roy hooted with glee as he looked up at Vail from Aaron's face, the features grew harder, sharper, glittering with malice. Clear blue eyes sparkling with sick joy at Vail's fury and confusion.
"Why Roy?!" Vail snapped.
"Just to fuck with you counselor. Well that and teach 'ol Aaron a valuable lesson in self-reliance." Roy grinned.
Vail felt his hands curl into fists and wanted nothing more than to bash Roy's face in. Instead he shook his head and set his weight back on his heels, forced his fists to relax. He left the paperwork behind and exited the room. He had a word with the orderly and forced his steps to stay even and calm as he left the secure wing.
He was reaching for his cell phone as he entered the main wing of the hospital.
"Molly, It's Martin Vail I need your advice, please give me a call back as soon as you're able."
She returned his call within the hour. He was still on the hospital grounds, sitting on a bench near visitor parking trying to determine his next course of action.
"You sounded odd in your message are you okay?" She asked.
"Bear with me here Molly, I'm trying to articulate this in a very specific way." He said carefully.
Her first instinct was to push for clarity but she kept quiet, allowing him to continue.
"This is wholly hypothetical." A long pause. She heard Vail take a long slow breath.
"Has a personality ever lied and pretended to be the actual personality?"
"You mean has an alter ever taken control and presented itself as the original personality?"
"No, well, maybe. I… is it possible for an alter to successfully masquerade as the dominant?"
"It's hard to say. I'm not aware of any cases offhand. I could do some research and get back to you." She had a terrible suspicion.
"Martin is… did he say something to you in confidence?" No need to identify the 'he' in question. Vail's stony silence was all the answer she needed. She let out her breath and put a hand to her forehead trying to determine how to proceed.
"Aren't there special conditions under which privilege is waived?" She asked carefully.
"There are, but they're rare and almost always involve a third party being present when the information is relayed or becoming aware of the information through judicial mismanagement or similar errors."
She licked her lips trying to think.
"Molly has…okay let me ask you this, if an alter was aware of impending psychological treatment, could it act to sabotage that treatment?"
"It's theoretically possible. It depends on how much information is being shared between personalities. Take Aaron Stampler for instance, Aaron was entirely unaware of Roy's actions and existence but Roy was wholly aware of Aaron and seemed to interact with some version of Aaron on some sub conscious level."
"So theoretically it would be possible for a personality like Roy, one aware of the information and circumstances around the main personality, to manipulate the therapeutic process?"
"Possibly but it's impossible to say for sure. Therapy even using the drugs and other treatments available today is extremely delicate work. What works with one patient may be a total disaster with a different patient suffering from the same condition."
"How…how would the process effect the other personalities? I mean, would it effectively kill them?"
"Are you wondering if a personality might interfere out of self-defense?"
"Yeah I guess I am."
"Normally I would say no, usually a personality splinters under extreme duress. Usually the personalities that emerge are used to cope. Again using Aaron as an example, Roy exists to protect Aaron, he expresses Aaron's anger and fear, he does so in fits of psychotic violence because Aaron isn't capable of normal aggression or anger reactions. In the normal course of events the alters will subsume themselves as the dominant personality stabilizes. They'll no longer be necessary."
"Normally."
"Correct I can't cite case history off the top of my head but it is not unusual for the integration process to take years and only be partially effective. Often the subject's number of personalities will be drastically reduced but he or she will still remain a multiple."
"Does that reduction ever occur spontaneously?"
"Not that I'm aware of though I don't think it's impossible."
"When the reduction occurs, are the remaining personalities, the lingering ones, are they stronger than normal? Could they overwhelm the original personality?"
"Martin, this is incredibly speculative –"
"Best guess Molly."
He heard her blow out a breath, could imagine her chewing her bottom lip and thinking it through.
"It would vary highly from patient to patient, the lingering personalities could persist due to many factors – "
"But the inherent strength of the personality –"
"I think could be one of the reasons, yes."
"Thanks Molly –"
"Martin, wait, listen without seeing data or working with whoever you have in mind I can't say anything for sure. This could all be entirely wrong and worse than wrong, damaging to your case. "
"I understand. Thank you. Can I call you if I have any other questions?"
"Of course."
He sat staring at the visitor's lot, head swimming, doubting himself in ways he hadn't since leaving the last of his young adulthood behind. Had he been wrong about Aaron? Had his first impression really been accurate? Had it been Roy looking at him through the bars, mimicking Aaron's voice with eerie precision? Roy who had crowed about fooling Vail and the justice system? He let himself assume, for the moment, that it had been Roy what did that change?
Nothing really. From what Aaron's doctors had said he was facing an indefinite commitment, likely for life. If Aaron had been telling the truth and he had been guilty of not just killing Rushman but his girlfriend then he would still be locked down for the foreseeable future.
So really, he needn't do anything and Stampler would be safed. Like a nuclear weapon deprived of its payload.
Right?
"Mister Vail, you're still here?" A bearlike man with dusky skin and kinder clever eyes was standing to Vail's right. Aaron's treating physician. Vail smiled in chagrin and shook his head.
"Just thinking."
"It's impressive that you came out here today. I'm certain a busy man such as yourself could have sent someone here with the paperwork."
"That's a very politic inquiry." Vail observed carefully.
"Well I find it's often best to feel these things out. Not everyone appreciates being pigeonholed."
"I'll tell you what doctor, point me in the direction of any place with decent coffee and I'll tell you why I'm out here."
The doctor a tall broad shouldered man with mocha skin and very short hair though not so short that it hid his pattern baldness snorted and nodded.
"Your car or mine?"
"I'll follow you." Vail replied.
"Clever." The doctor replied with a small speculative smile.
"Spill."
Vail looked into the depths of his mediocre black coffee and tried to figure out how to say what needed saying.
"You know all the jokes about lawyers?" Vail asked.
"You should hear the ones about shrinks."
Vail found a small smile teasing his lips and belying his mood.
"There are a lot, and I do mean a lot, of lawyers who earn those jokes. But for each of them there's at least one that gives a damn that really fights."
"And you're one of those?"
"No, I alternate between the two. A lot of us do."
"So which was Aaron? Giving a damn or ambulance chasing?"
"Both? I… I had a good idea Rushman wasn't the saint the city thought he was. I saw Aaron's arrest live on television with the rest of Chicago." He paused and sipped the bitter coffee.
The physician simply waited, calm hazel eyes watching Vail.
"But after I met Aaron…I genuinely didn't think he was the killer." Vail stared into his coffee and for a moment he saw Rushman's living area, the blood spattered curtains and carpet, the gruesome nightmare images from the crime scene photos.
"So you thought Aaron was probably a victim?"
"You've met him, he screams victim. He's shy, quiet, certainly smart but passive."
"He is certainly not what he appears to be."
"Understatement." Vail sighed.
"What about Rushman?"
"I used to be a prosecutor working for Roy Shaugnessy. I … well I can't actually tell you why I strongly suspected Rushman wasn't what he seemed to be, at least not beyond what was revealed int he courtroom. But, there were reasons."
"Did you actually suspect Aaron was a victim of some kind?"
"I knew it, in my bones. I took one look at his face as the cops cuffed him and hauled him off and I made the call."
"Do you regret that?"
"Why? Because he actually killed the Archbishop?" Vail's sounded almost accusing.
Doctor Henser remained very quiet and still. Vail wondered if that was how he compelled any patients to open up, the pressure of expectant silence.
"I don't regret taking the case, I can't. I'm a defense attorney I defend. I have this speech I give to people who ask about guilt and truth I won't bore you with it. The point is the law only works when its tested, I've devoted my life to testing it. On one side of the table or the other. I make a decisions, I choose to believe that good people do terrible things and these good people have the right to a lawyer worth his salt. I try to be that lawyer."
"But do you regret it?"
Vail smiled and half shook his head.
"You're a dog with a bone. Yeah, sometimes, when I wonder if Aaron might be released one day, might do it again I feel …not regret that's too clear a word. I feel…dread. Because if he is released and Roy is still in him what he did to Rushman will pale."
"You're that certain he's dangerous?"
"Roy certainly is."