Voices In The Walls: A Psychological Thriller (Michael Gresham Series) Read online

  VOICES IN THE WALLS

  John Ellsworth

  Contents

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  John Ellsworth

  Voices In The Walls

  Prologue

  Before

  1. Danny

  2. Michael

  3. Michael

  4. Michael

  5. Danny

  6. Danny

  7. Danny

  8. Danny

  9. Danny

  10. Gunnar

  11. Danny

  12. Michael

  13. Michael

  14. Danny

  15. Michael

  16. Danny

  17. Danny

  18. Michael

  19. Michael

  20. Michael

  After

  21. Danny

  22. Danny

  23. Danny

  24. Danny and Tingo

  25. Jana and Vicki

  26. Danny

  27. Danny

  28. Jana and Niles

  29. Danny

  30. Danny

  31. Danny and Tingo

  32. Danny

  33. Danny

  34. Danny

  35. Danny

  36. Danny

  37. Danny

  38. Ilene

  39. Tingo

  40. Danny

  41. Tingo

  42. Danny

  43. Michael

  44. Michael

  45. Michael

  46. Danny

  47. Jana and Niles

  48. Jana and Niles

  49. Danny

  50. Danny

  51. Michael

  52. Danny

  53. Danny

  54. Michael

  55. Danny

  56. Michael

  57. Danny

  58. Danny

  59. Danny

  Also by John Ellsworth

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

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  Reviews

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  — John Ellsworth (August 2016)

  Voices In The Walls

  John Ellsworth

  Prologue

  Dr. Donnelly Zastrow tugs at his goatee and reflects before answering Danny’s question.

  Then, “More than anything else, what you suffer from is an identity disorder. We call it dissociative identity disorder. At one time it was called multiple personality disorder or MPD.”

  “But am I getting better?” Danny asks. “Will I recover?” Her face is hopeful.

  “There are therapies, some of which you’ve already encountered.”

  “Is there a rating scale so I know how bad I am? Or how good?”

  “Dissociative states happen on a spectrum. Imagine a horizontal line. A scale of zero on the left end to a hundred on the right end. Let’s say Danny’s dissociation is fifty. Is that enough for her many personalities to come forward and take over? Yes, in some people. That’s what happened in Danny’s case.”

  “I was a fifty?”

  “More like an eighty. At least at times you are.”

  Michael Gresham looks troubled. “But is this something she was born with, this identity disorder?”

  “Absolutely not. Usually there is a traumatic event, often sexual in nature, that causes the host’s personality to split. Multiple personalities appear. No, your wife wasn’t born with it, Michael.”

  Michael looks troubled still. “Can it come back? Can a personality take over again and take her away from me?”

  “It’s possible. But your wife is working very hard to integrate her identities. So there’s hope, as long as she keeps working.”

  Michael stands up. He is frustrated, his fists clenching and unclenching, and he is clearly worried. He pulls out his credit card to pay the psychiatrist for the session. But the doctor raises a hand.

  “Michael, I would like to extend our session today. I purposely didn’t tell you this ahead of time because I didn’t want you preparing your stories ahead of time. I want you both to tell me now. What happened, who was involved and how it ended. It has ended?”

  Danny looked at Michael, who only shrugged.

  “No,” said Danny, “it hasn’t ended. Jana is still alive.”

  “Tell me the story. Now, please. Danny goes first.”

  Danny nodded and smiled. “This is good. I can tell you what I know and I can tell you what someone else has told me. Is that okay?”

  “Sure. I want everything you have.”

  “Both of us?” asked Michael.

  “Both of you. Danny goes first.”

  Part I

  Before

  1

  Danny

  January 25, 2014

  Everyone gets their day in court, even the man who raped me and now wants our son. There's the judge, judging us all; there's Jana, my rapist. There's his lawyer, a smart-alecky woman who makes faces at me when the judge isn't watching. There's Michael, my husband, who is as lost in all of this as me. And seated beside me at counsel table is my custody lawyer, Louis Rickover.

  Can a rapist actually get custody? That’s the question Michael and I asked each other the day we got served with the papers. We're both lawyers and know the rules of the road, but this is beyond anything we ever imagined. We are desperate as we sit in court this morning. Desperate to keep this animal at bay, desperate even to see him die and never bother us again.

  Jana is enjoying every minute of his lawsuit, like he enjoyed me. I’ve never told Michael that. If I did, Jana would be dead and Michael would be in a four-by-eight eating food that comes through a hole in the door. It’s a secret I carry for us both and it makes me hate my husband for not catching on. That’s not entirely true: most days I love my husband just fine even when I’m dealing with my demons. But still.

  All around me the courtroom is stirring. The judge listens to Jana, the first witness.

  “State your name for the record.”

  “Jana Emerich.”

  “Mr. Emerich, what is your occupation?”

  “I’m a tutor.”

  “What field do you tutor?”

  “Psychology. I help junior college kids.”

  Psychology! How do I describe my shock when he says this? I laugh and the judge fixes me with her dark eyes. “Sorry, Your Honor,” I say, swallowing the next laugh before I hurt my case. My lawyer jolts me in the ribs with his elbow.

  “Danny,” he whispers to me—my given name is Dania—“cool it!”

  I need to break away. I cannot watch this joke.

  Michael and I have only been married five years. We both come from failed marriages, so we're older. He is in his fifties and I'm mid-forties. We exercise regularly at the gym; Michael lifts and does cardio; I do Pilates and cardio and yoga. Michael's skin is dark and his hair is full and black and straight, which he wears combed back from his forehead. He has some burn scarring on his face, and his hands shake when he's nervous, just like mine are doing here in court. I'm blond and wear my hair brushed over to one side. Not much else to say except that my eyes are blue and, anymore, they look opaque to me, as if I cannot see inside to myself since all this began. Glances in mirrors over any given day leave me startled, sometimes, for I look troubled and put upon.

  I have times when I’m not with Michael, times when I’m not even with myself. T
hings happen; I go places; I find airline boarding passes in my purse and Michael asks me where I’ve been. We’ve been to see people about this. One, a woman, suggested I’m being dishonest, that maybe I’m having an affair someplace out of town, something I don’t want Michael to find out about. I ripped into her—I’m a lawyer and can be very verbal—and she said she wouldn’t see us anymore. We came away and I promised Michael there was no one else.

  We number four now, in our little family, since Mikey came along two years ago. We have our four year-old, Dania, who Michael fathered, and we have Mikey, by Jana. We live on the western shore of Lake Michigan in a suburb north of Chicago and we work very hard so our kids can have what they need and grow up in a great house in a great neighborhood. We work at being grounded and living within the means of those around us though we earn more than most of them, judging by their Fords and Chevy's and our out-of-step-with-our-neighbors Mercedes. I could go on about this, but I won't. Michael and I are good earners.

  There has been a buckle in my thoughts, an interruption. Then I am having a hard time hearing the judge just as I'm realizing she is speaking to me. My lawyer again nudges me with his elbow. “Danny?” he whispers to me. "We talked about this. Are you ready?"

  I look up at the judge and she believes I've heard it all.

  I take a chance.

  "Yes, Your Honor, I'm ready to testify."

  "Very well," she says. "Please take the witness stand and be sworn."

  I do. I swear to tell the truth and the whole truth.

  If they only knew. I have as many versions of the truth as they could want.

  Now I only have to figure out which version is actually mine.

  2

  Michael

  Closing arguments are underway and the judge has asked for statements from the parties.

  "Your Honor," says Jana Emerich, "I am the father of the little boy and I have a right to custody. I have an absolute right,” he repeats.

  Judge Frances Eimmers peers down over her half-shells at Emerich.

  "Sir, in my courtroom, you have a right when I say you have a right. Otherwise, you have a hope, a wish, or a desire. But you don't have a right. Now tell the court what you would do to explain to the boy, when he's eleven or twelve, how it is you are his father when the mother is married to Mr. Gresham here."

  Emerich is a fit man, and a handsome man. He stands at the lectern, one foot behind and swinging on the toe of his Florsheim, relaxed and earnest-looking. But Danny and I know it's all an act. This is the man who violently assaulted her after I had defended him and won on a charge of first degree murder. He paid me back by raping my wife and giving us a son. He opens his mouth to speak.

  "I'll tell him that at one time his mother and I were together and we conceived. I would hope his mother would join me in this so he doesn't grow up thinking he's the offspring of a crime." He turns and looks at Danny, sitting beside her lawyer. He pauses in order to give her the chance to tell the judge that she will be complicit like Emerich is suggesting, that she will go along with lying to our son by telling Mikey his mother and Jana once had a thing. I want to jump up from the visitors' seats, charge past the bar and choke him to death. It is everything I can do to keep my mouth shut.

  Danny looks away at the windows on the far side of the courtroom. It is freezing in Chicago and ice pellets are whipping against the glass, sounding like repeating blasts from shotgun pellets. At least that's what I'm hearing, because Dania and I are under assault by this madman. It takes huge brass balls for him to come into court and try to make a case for custody when his child is a rape baby.

  Judge Eimmers studies Danny. It looks as if she has momentarily come under the spell of Jana Emerich and is waiting to hear what the mother has to say about the father's proposed lie to our son. Danny appears not to notice the judge is waiting for her to speak. Again a blast at the windows and she keeps her gaze over there.

  "Mrs. Gresham, should the court award visitation to Mr. Emerich, how would you handle the paternity question with your Mikey?"

  She turns back. There are tears in her eyes, I know, I can hear them in her voice when she speaks. "I plan on telling him his mommy was with a very bad man one time and he was born."

  "And when he's older?"

  Danny turns away and shakes her head, her hand gripping her forehead. Her lawyer places his hand on her back, steadying her.

  "When he's older, I don't know. Do you tell your son you were sexually assaulted and that's where he comes from? Or do you tell him a lie? If you lie, he will eventually learn the truth and hate you for it. But if you tell him you were raped, then he's going to know he wasn't planned, wasn't wanted, and might have even been aborted had the situation been slightly different."

  The judge pulls her half-shells from her nose and rubs her face with both hands. It is late in the afternoon, the day before Christmas, and the petitioner wants to visit his son Christmas Day. He wants to bring him presents, take him to dinner, maybe go to one of the kiddie movies they always run over the holidays. Sounds innocent enough, no? But the whole proposition is a dagger in our hearts. How can a legal system even countenance such a thing? Anymore, it doesn't. The law has changed and rapist's parental rights are now severed and they never see their offspring. But this sexual assault happened before the law changed; so, he has a right, whether the court wishes to acknowledge it or not. And that's what scares us. We're both lawyers and we know what appeals courts can do when a case is up, as this one will certainly be if the court denies the petition and says no visitation. Appellate courts are usually very quick to uphold the law and in this case, on appeal, it would send the case back with instructions to the judge to grant some form of visitation, all else being equal.

  The judge looks out over the courtroom and connects her eyes to mine.

  "Mr. Gresham," she says, "while you're not a party to this case, your views are important to the court. What do you believe should happen here?"

  It is the wrong question to ask me. I have stuffed my rage for years. I have wanted to track this guy down and castrate him. Except that's already happened, thanks to the Illinois Department of Corrections, and I'm too late to separate him from his sack.

  "Judge, what I would like to see happen," I say carefully, choosing my words, "is I would like to see Mr. Emerich run over by a bus. Or shot to death in a convenience store robbery, or stricken with pancreatic cancer and be dead in six weeks. But, unfortunately, none of those things are likely to happen. So I plan on telling my son that he was, in fact, the result of a sexual assault, but that his mother and I loved him so much—so goddam much—that we chose to go ahead and see him born and to raise him and love him as our precious son. That's the best we can do. But to allow this monster even one minute alone with my son is something I won't abide. I will take him to Spain and raise him there first, where there is no visitation for criminals. Or at least to another state where rapists don't get to visit their victims; because the boy is, all things considered, another victim of Mr. Emerich. An innocent victim, as was my wife. So today I'm telling the court that I will do whatever I can to make sure visitation never happens, no matter what the court might order. I will not allow it."

  Judge Eimmers pulls herself upright in her chair and scowls at me.

  "Sir, you're saying you would ignore the court's order if I do allow visitation on a trial basis to see where it goes?"

  I take to my feet and come around and walk through the bar. I stride up to Emerich and stand beside him at the lectern. I have no legal right to be there because I am not a party and I am not counsel of record, but I don't give a damn. I'm there and I'm going to position myself in a such a way that this animal knows what it feels like to have his victim's husband up close and personal. It's all I can do not to assault him then and there. I'm certain he feels the vibe.

  "Judge, that's right. I'm saying that this entire proceeding is meaningless if the court allows visitation. Because I have zero plan to obey such an order.
"

  I cross my arms and lean nearer Emerich to where our shoulders graze each other.

  At which point my wife speaks up.

  "Your Honor, I would ask that this whole matter be continued for one year so that proper counseling and preparations can be made for visitation. Our family needs counseling. I do and you can see my husband does too."

  My wife is smart. Courts love to continue matters to allow counseling. Judge Eimmers bites.

  "Very well. The court quite agrees with Mrs. Gresham. But twelve months isn’t fair to Mr. Emerich. So, this case will be continued for six months to allow counseling. The clerk will give you a new date. This matter stands in recess."

  She bangs her gavel twice and the courtroom deputies immediately rush to where I'm brushing against Emerich and wedge themselves between us. One deputy moves Emerich away; one moves me away.

  As we're being separated, I just can't resist.

  "Emerich," I say in a voice that is shaking with rage, "you'll never visit my son. I promise you that."

  He smiles and tosses his head back to laugh.

  "I'm not only going to visit my son, I'm going to visit your wife again, counselor."

  With that I tear away and charge him. Fighting through the deputy shielding him, I manage to reach and hammer him one hard blow with my fist. It's an uppercut and catches him squarely on the point of his chin. His knees buckle and he starts to go down.

  But both deputies reach for him and pull him upright. He is woozy; he manages to find me with his eyes. There is no fear there, there is only a taunting look that demands I attack him again. I'm about to rush him when I feel an arm pulling me away from behind. I turn and see it's Danny pulling me back.

  "Go sit down, Michael," she commands me.

  "I'm going to murder the son of a bitch!" I cry, totally out of control.