False Memory

some of the things claimed to’ve been done to them actually had been done, I’d almost certainly have found tissue damage, scarring, and chronic infections. Ahriman was turning up all these stories of satanic sex and torture—but I couldn’t find one scintilla of medical backup.”
    Five members of the Ornwahl family had been indicted, and the preschool had nearly been torn apart in the search for clues.
    “Then,” Closterman said, “I was approached by someone aware of my opinion of Ahriman... and told that before all this started, he’d been treating the sister of the woman who accused the Omwahls.”
    “Shouldn’t Ahriman have disclosed that connection?” Dusty asked.
    “Absolutely. So I went to the D.A. The woman, it turns out, was the sister of the accuser, but Ahriman claimed he’d never been aware of their relationship.”
    “You didn’t believe him?”
    “No. But the D.A. did—and kept him on board. Because if they had admitted Ahriman was tainted, they couldn’t have used any of his interviews with the kids. In fact, any stories the children told him would have to be treated as coerced or even induced memories. They wouldn’t be worth spit in court. The prosecution’s case depended on unwavering belief in Ahriman’s integrity.”
    “I don’t recall reading any of this in the papers,” Martie said.
    “I’m getting to that,” Closterman promised.
    His knife work at the cutting board grew less precise, more aggressive, as if he were not slicing just yellow peppers.
    “My information was that Ahriman’s patient was often brought to his office by the sister, by the woman who had accused the Ornwahls.”
    “Like I took Susan,” Martie noted.
    “If that were true, then there was no way he couldn’t have met her at least once. But I didn’t have proof, just hearsay. Unless you want to be sued for defamation of character, you don’t go ranting in public about a man like Ahriman until you’ve got the evidence.”
    Earlier in the day, in his office, Closterman had tried a frown, which hadn’t worked on his balloon-round features. Now anger overcame facial geometry, and a hard scowl fit where a frown had not.
    “I didn’t know how to get that proof. I’m no doctor detective like on TV. But I thought... Well, let’s see if there’s anything in the bastard’s past. It did seem odd that he’d made big moves twice in his career. After more than ten years in Santa Fe, he’d jumped to Scottsdale, Arizona. And after seven years there, he came here to Newport. Generally speaking, successful doctors don’t throw over their practices and move to new cities on a whim.”
    Closterman finished cutting the peppers into strips. He rinsed the knife, dried it, and put it away.
    “I asked around the medical community, to see if anyone might know someone who practices in Santa Fe. This cardiologist friend of mine had a friend from med school who settled in Santa Fe, and he made introductions. Turns out this doctor in Santa Fe actually knew Ahriman when he was out there... and didn’t like him a damn bit more than I do. And then the kicker... there was a big sexual abuse case at a preschool out there, and Ahriman did the interviews of the children, like he did here. Questions were raised then, too, about his techniques.”
    Dusty’s stomach had soured, and though he didn’t think that the coffee had anything to do with it, he pushed his cup aside.
    “One of the children, a five-year-old girl, committed suicide as the trial was starting,” Roy Closterman said. “A five-year-old. Left a pathetic picture she’d drawn of a girl like her... kneeling before a naked man. The man was anatomically correct.”
    “Dear God,” Martie said, pushing her chair back from the table. She started to get up, had nowhere to go, and sat down again.
    Dusty wondered if the five-year-old girl’s body would flicker through Martie’s mind in grisly detail during her next panic attack.
    “The case might as well have gone to jury right then, because the defendants were as good as cooked. The Santa Fe prosecutor obtained convictions across the board.”
    The physician took a bottle of beer from the refrigerator and twisted off the cap.
    “Bad things happen to good people when they’re around Dr. Mark Ahriman, but he always comes out looking like a savior. Until the Pastore murders in Santa Fe. Mrs. Pastore, perfectly nice woman, never known to have a bad word for anyone or a moment of instability in her life, suddenly loads a revolver and decides to kill her family. Starts by