Missing by Jonathan Valin

remorse, but his
guilt wasn’t going to get me anywhere. Nor was the talk about
sudden, inexplicable breakdowns. I’d been hearing it all day.
    "He may have been upset by a visit to his
ex-lover, Del Cavanaugh," I said, trying to turn him to
specifics.
    Mulhane looked up at me and sighed. "I’m sure
he was. He told me he was dreading it."
    "Mason told you he’d gone to see Cavanaugh‘?"
I said with surprise.
    "He told me he was planning to go."
    "When was this?"
    Mulhane shuffled through a folder on his desk. "A
week ago last Thursday. The last time I saw him. He stopped in that
morning to complain about the insomnia."
    Presumably before he went to see Cavanaugh that same
Thursday afternoon. It wasn’t much of a chronology, but it was a
start.
    "Did he tell you how he’d heard that Cavanaugh
was dying?"
    "I think I may have told him myself when he came
to the oflice. Del is also a patient of mine."
    It certainly blew hell out of my theory that the
Scotch-drinking stranger Greenleaf had met on the Wednesday night
before he disappeared had told him about Cavanaugh’s illness. And
it maybe blew hell out of the idea that Cavanaugh was part of the
reason for his despair. Whatever had been bothering Greenleaf had
clearly started before he’d seen his ex-lover, although I supposed
the news that he was dying and the subsequent visit to his home could
have accelerated his decline.
    "If you’ve been talking to Del," Mulhane
went on, "you may have gotten a wrong impression about why Mason
went to see him. Del’s a bitter man just now. Actually, he’s been
a bitter man most of his life. And Mason breaking up with him was a
blow he never got over. Anyway, Mason didn’t go to him because he
was still holding a flame. He went out of  kindness and a sense
of obligation, to say good-bye to a friend."
    "It will help Cindy to hear that," I said.
"She’s tormented by the fear that Mason betrayed her."
    "It’s natural for her to feel that way, given
what Mason did. But I honestly believe that he was happy with her. In
fact, Mason once told me that the thing he was most afraid of was
losing Cindy. He had in his mind that whatever made him happy
wouldn’t last very long."
    "Why?"
    The doctor shook his head. "I guess when people
have been telling you that you’re undeserving of love for most of
your life, it begins to sink in."
    The way he was putting it, it sounded like Mason
Greenleaf had been primed for suicide for a long time. Which made
Mulhane’s surprise that he’d gone through with it a bit
mystifying. "If he was this chronically depressed," I said,
"why wasn’t he in therapy or on medication?"
    "Mr. Stoner," Mulhane said, "Mason
wasn’t clinically depressed. He functioned quite effectively given
the load he had to bear, and he did so with unusual grace and good
humor. The fears he had were reality-based. Certainly he had every
reason to be terrified of AIDS, especially given what has happened to
Del. He had reason to fear the loss of love—his past was checkered
with broken relationships. It bothers me that people, even many
professionals, automatically assume a pathogenesis because someone is
occasionally and reasonably unhappy. Mason Greenleaf was not without
considerable resources."
    It was the first time he’d sounded like a guru. But
it was an enlightened kind of guruism, based on close, affectionate
observation of his patient. Clearly Mulhane was the kind of doctor
who treated the "whole" person. And just as clearly,
Greenleaf had been his friend. Which must have made his suicide
especially painful.
    "Something must’ve happened during that week
after I saw him," he said, as if he’d been reading my mind,
"some awful blow. I have to believe that whatever it was hit him
where he was weakest, where he was most afraid."
    "That he would lose Cindy," I said,
completing the thought.
    "That’s my best guess."
    It was a new theory and, on the surface, not a
particularly persuasive one, given the fact that Cindy Dorn