The Door to December

officials?'
     'They were deeply ashamed. And until we found and questioned them, they never suspected that their masochistic aberrations were Hoffritz's work. They all thought those twisted desires had been in them all along.'
     'But that's amazing. They knew they were involved in behavior-modification experiments. So when they started behaving in ways they'd never behaved before—'
     She held up one hand, stopping him. 'Willy Hoffritz probably implanted posthypnotic directives that inhibited each girl from considering the possibility that he was responsible for her new behavior.'
     It scared Dan to think the brain was just so much Silly Putty that could be so easily manipulated.
    * * *
    Melanie scuttled past Earl and sprang to her feet and took two awkward steps into the middle of the bedroom, where she stopped and swayed and almost fell. She began once more to scourge herself, hammering herself as if she felt that she deserved to be punished or as if she were trying to drive some dark spirit from her traitorous flesh.
     Stepping close, grunting as the small fists glanced off her, Laura threw her arms around her daughter, hugged her, trying to pin the child's arms at her sides.
     When her hands were restrained, Melanie still didn't settle down. She kicked and screamed.
     Earl Benton stepped in behind her, sandwiching her between him and Laura, so she couldn't move at all. She could only shout and weep and strain to break free. The three of them remained like that for a minute or two, while Laura spoke continuously and reassuringly to the girl, and finally Melanie stopped struggling. She sagged between them.
     'She done?' Earl asked.
     'I think so,' Laura said.
     'Poor kid.'
     Melanie looked exhausted.
     Earl stepped back.
     Docile now, Melanie allowed Laura to lead her to the bed. She sat on the edge of it.
     She was still weeping.
     Laura said, 'Baby? Are you all right?'
     Eyes glazed, the girl said, 'It came open. It came open again, all the way open.' She shuddered in revulsion.
    * * *
    'The fifth girl,' Dan said. 'The one he beat up and put in hospital. What was her name?'
     The stocky psychologist moved away from the twilight-darkened window, returned to her desk, and slumped in her chair as if these unpleasant memories had drained her in a way that a hard day's work never could. 'Not sure I should tell you.'
     'I believe you have to.'
     'Invasion of privacy and all that.'
     'Police investigation and all that.'
     'Doctor-patient privilege and all that,' she said.
     'Oh? This fifth girl was your patient?'
     'I visited her several times in the hospital.'
     'Not good enough, Marge. Carefully worded, but not quite good enough. I visited my dad every day when he was in the hospital for a triple heart-bypass operation, but I don't figure a daily visit gives me the right to call myself his doctor.'
     Marge sighed. 'It's just that the poor girl suffered so much, and now to dredge it all up again four years after the fact—'
     'I'm not going to find her and dredge up the past in front of a new husband or her parents or anything like that,' Dan assured her. 'I may look big and dumb and crude, but actually I can be sensitive and discreet.'
     'You don't look dumb or crude.'
     'Thank you.'
     'You do look dangerous.'
     'I cultivate that image. It helps in my line of work.'
     She hesitated a moment longer, then shrugged. 'Her name was Regine Savannah.'
     'You're kidding.'
     'Would Irmatrude Gelkenshettle kid about anyone's name?'
     'Sorry.' He wrote 'Regine Savannah' in his small notebook. 'You know where she lives?'
     'Well, at that time it all happened, Regine was a junior in the undergraduate program. She shared a large off-campus apartment in Westwood with three other girls. But I'm sure she's long gone from that address.'
     'What happened after she got out of hospital? Did she drop out of school?'
     'No. She finished her studies, took her degree, although there were those who wished she would have transferred. Some felt it was a continuing embarrassment to have her here.'
     That sentiment baffled him. 'Embarrassment? I'd think everyone would've been happy that she recovered sufficiently — physically and psychologically