Virtual American Gothic - Second Season Episode Four Big Mama Knows Best by Robyn Russell (wrussell@polarnet.com) ********************************************* NOT TO BE ARCHIVED TO A WEB PAGE WITHOUT THE AUTHOR'S PRIOR CONSENT. Guest stars: Polly Holiday as Lucila Mae Buck Samuel L. Jackson as Dr. Malcolm "Do you know why you're here, Matt?" Dr. Glen Malcolm asked. The sessions room at Juniper House was quiet except for the muted hum of the digital clock. "This is my weekly therapy session." Dr. Malcolm surpressed a smile. "I meant why you're at Juniper House." "I took a shot at the sheriff." Matt's face became impassive, looking back at those few, fateful moments. "And why did you try to kill Sheriff Buck?" "Look, you've got my file. You should know all this." "I'd like for you to tell me." "I tried to kill him because he's evil." "What makes you think that?" "I just know, that's all." "You must have had some reason to assume that the sheriff was evil." "I know he killed Merlyn Temple and her father." "Do you have proof of that?" "If I did, would I be here now?" "So your assumption about the sheriff's guilt is based on what?" "All I know is that when he's around, bad things happen." Matt sighed in exasperation. "Therefore, he is responsible for those bad things?" "Exactly." Dr. Malcolm considered this line of reasoning for a moment. "So I suppose you could say that because I'm around when my patients become disturbed, I've made them crazy." "That's not what I meant." "Isn't it? As a doctor, you were around when people became sick. Maybe you made them ill." "It's not the same thing. Look, his mother told me that he was evil." "His mother? That would be your patient, Angela Smith?" "Yes." "Why would she tell you something like that, Matt?" "Because it's true." "Could it be that she told you something that she knew you wanted to believe?" "Lucas Buck is evil, Doctor. There's no doubt about that." A gentle, beep-beep sounded from the digital clock. "Our time is up for today, Matt, but I would like to discuss this subject further with you." "I'm here all the time, Doctor," Matt said with a crooked smile. "Don't take it so hard, Glen. Mr. Crower is a very frustrating case," said Dr. Guthridge, after Matt had been lead away by the orderlies. Dr. Malcolm removed his horn rimmed glasses and rubbed his eyes. "Just when I think I'm getting through to him, he throws up his defenses." "Perhaps there's some residual organic brain damage from that virus he contracted." "Maybe, but I don't think so. His whole fantasy about Sheriff Buck is based on the testimony of one person, Angela Smith. If I could just confront him with the truth, I think I might be able to break through to him." "In order to confront someone with the truth, you first have to know what that truth is, Glen." Dr. Guthridge's low heeled pumps clicked quietly out of the room leaving Dr. Malcolm lost in thought. "Excuse me, ma'am, may I help you?" Ben half rose from his desk to stop the gray-haired matron from entering the sheriff's office. "I'm here to see the sheriff, dear. Oh, and these are for you," she said handing both Ben and Floyd a large jar of peach preserves. "You boys just dig right in. Those peaches are my own recipe. The herbs and spices make 'em special." "Gee, thanks, Mrs. . uh, Mrs. . . " Floyd stammered, enthralled as always by the prospect of food. "Buck, dear. Lucila Buck. But everyone calls me Mama Lucy." "You're related to the sheriff?" Floyd queried. "Why, of course, dear. Why wouldn't I be?" "I didn't think he had any relatives that were still al...." "Still living in Fulton County," Ben interjected. "Mama Lucy!" Lucas swooped out of his office and gave the fragile old woman a big bear hug. "What are you doin' here?" "I've come to see my favorite grandson, of course," Lucila said, giving him a pat on the cheek. "Why didn't you call? I'd have sent a car up for you." "Now, Lucas, I'm not so old that I can't get around by myself." "What brings you to town, Mama Lucy?" Lucas asked, once they were safely behind closed doors. "Does a grandmother need an excuse to visit her only grandson? Or her great-grandson? You might have told me about young Caleb. Imagine me havin' to find it out from that gossipy Drusilla Parker." "Drusilla always did talk too much." "She's got her uses. So how is my great- grandbaby?" "Well enough I suppose." "You suppose? You're his daddy." "We ain't talkin' much these days." "Can't say I'm surprised. You did throw the boy off that staircase." "I didn't realize Drusilla knew so much about my business." "I don't need that nosy old bat to find out everything that goes on in Trinity." A knock on the door was followed by Ben's head. "Lucas, Dr. Malcolm is here to see you." "Dr. Malcolm?" "From Juniper House. He's Matt Crower's psychiatrist. Says he needs to see you right away." "Send him on in." Ben ushered in Dr. Malcolm. "I'm Lucas Buck, Doctor, and this is my grandmother, Mrs. Buck." "Nice to meet the both of you. Sheriff, this is a bit awkward, but I was wondering if I could see your files on the Temple-Gage murder-suicide." "Those files are confidential, Doctor. May I ask why you're so interested in seeing them?" "My patient, Matt Crower, seems to be obsessed with this case. I thought if I knew more about it, I'd be better able to help him." Lucas let out a long-suffering, public servant sigh. "Let me guess. He's still going on about how the sheriff's department helped cover up this heinous crime." "That's correct." "Doctor, the case is closed and that poor girl and her daddy are dead and buried. I really don't think that dredging up painful memories is the best way to help Dr. Crower. His memories are painful enough already." "I hope you will at least think it over, Sheriff. You can reach me up at Juniper House if you change your mind." Dr. Malcolm left, just as happy to get away from the sheriff and his grandmother. It was eerie how those two sets of eyes watched a person. Almost as if they could look straight into his soul. Buck and Lucila watched Malcolm drive away. "That psychiatrist is gonna keep askin' questions, Lucas." "I know it, Mama Lucy." Buck picked up the phone. "You'd think that puttin' a man in a padded cell would shut him up for a while." Lucila laid a restraining hand on her grandson's arm. "Your problem's not that Mr. Crower is talking. It's that people are starting to believe him." Lucas mulled that over. "Maybe I ought to pay old Harvard a visit." "If that Boston boy starts ravin' while you're there, the doctors are just going to say that he's havin' a reaction to seein' you again. If he starts ravin' while I'm there, however . . ." "They're going to think that he's just plumb loco." Lucas smiled at the thought. "You know, I bet that hospital food is mighty bland. Maybe you ought to bring Harvard one of your famous peach pies. The one with the secret herbs and spices." "That's my Lucas. Always thinking." "I hope I'm not imposing, Miss Holt," Lucila said, smiling easily. "Not at all, Mrs. Buck. As it happens, I do have a free room now. I'm afraid it's up on the second floor." "That's all right, dear. There's life in this old biddy yet." "Caleb," Loris asked as the boy clomped by deep in thought. "Would you help carry Mrs. Buck's bags up to her room?" Caleb gave the old woman a searching stare. "You gonna be takin' Dr. Matt's room? He went crazy, you know." "Caleb!" Loris warned. "That's all right, Miss Holt. Yes, I'm going to be staying up in his room, Caleb." She leaned forward confidentially. "Do you think it might be haint'd?" "No, Dr. Matt ain't dead yet," Caleb replied with the authority of an expert in such matters. "Caleb, less talk and more work," Loris said sternly. "Yes, ma'am." "Here it is," Caleb shouldering open the door as he manhandled a suitcase too large for him. "Thank you, dear," Lucila said as she looked around. "Were you and Dr. Matt friends, honey?" "Yes, ma'am. But I don't get to see him now." "I'm sure he'd like to see you." "Doctors won't let me and Miss Holt visit. They say we ain't family." Caleb still smarted with the injustice of it all. "I'm going up tomorrow to visit Dr. Malcolm. I'm sure he'd let you see Matt if I was along." "You can really do that?" "Umm-hmmm. I'll ask Miss Holt this evening if you can come with me. In fact, if you like, you can help me bake a nice peach pie to take up to Juniper House." Lucila held up a jar of her peach preserves in the afternoon sun. The rays shone through the glass making the insides glow like hidden treasure. "Thank you for bringing this book to my attention, Mrs. Buck," Dr. Malcolm said, as he, Lucila, and Caleb trotted down the corridor of Juniper House. "I think it might be just what he needs." "I hope you don't mind my bringing young Caleb along, Doctor. The boy missed his friend a great deal." "Not at all. Caleb, I'd like you to wait outside with Dr. Guthridge." He indicated the hospital's director. "You can watch at the observation window. When the session is over, you can come in and visit." "Matt, Mrs. Buck has something here I thought you'd like to see," Dr. Malcolm said, after they had finished their pie. "Well, my grandson was talking about that poor Mrs. Smith that committed suicide over at the hospital last year . . ." "Angela," Matt interjected. "That's right, Matt," Dr. Malcolm said. "And how they weren't able to locate any of her people to come and identify the body," Lucila continued smoothly. "When he showed me her picture from the newspaper, I couldn't help but think that I had seen her someplace before. So I did some digging around and I found this." Lucila laid the dusty yearbook down on the white table top. On the cover were the words "Fulton County High School" and the date "1972". "Matt, is this the woman that you knew as Angela Smith?" Matt stared at the grainy black and white staff picture beneath the words "Foreign Languages". The woman was younger, her face unlined, but it was undeniably the same Angela. The caption below her photo read "Angela Dupree, French". "Yes, that's her. But why would she . . ." "Lie about her identity? That's a good question, isn't it?" Dr. Malcolm interjected. "Tell him what you told me earlier, Mrs. Buck." "Mrs. Dupree was a very dedicated teacher. She was my grandson's French teacher when he was in high school. Very fond of her students. Maybe a little too fond," Lucila answered. "What do you mean by that?" Matt asked. "I don't like to speak ill of the dead, but rumor had it that she was romantically involved with some of her male students. Of course, nothing was ever proven, but the school board declined to renew her contract and she left town under a cloud. That would have been, let me see now, some twenty years ago," Lucila finished smoothly. "But why would she have wanted me to kill the sheriff?" "Matt, you know as well as I do, that a tumor on the brain can sometimes cause people to act irrationally," Dr. Malcolm said gently. "We can only speculate, of course, but I would say that a dying woman, no longer thinking clearly, might be driven to exact some kind of revenge against a man she was obsessed with in his youth." "That would mean that I . . . that I . . ." Matt's eyes rolled back, his body stiffened, and he suddenly collapsed onto the floor. "Medical emergency, session room five!" Dr. Guthridge shouted into the telephone. She rushed out of the observation booth to help Dr. Malcolm who was trying unsuccessfully to calm his frothing, spasming patient. A shocked Caleb watched from behind the one-way glass as several burly orderlies strapped Matt onto a gurney. Lucila's back was to the observation window so he didn't see the odd look of satisfaction in her eyes as they wheeled Dr. Crower away. "Dr. Malcolm, I am so sorry," Lucila gushed as the somber little party trudged back into the lobby. "I would never have brought that yearbook in if I had thought it would upset that poor boy so much." "It wasn't your fault, Mrs. Buck. I should have forseen this." Dr. Malcolm's dark face bore a purple bruise where one of Matt's flailing arms had caught him before the sedative took effect. "I'm sorry you had to witness that, Caleb. Matt was doing so well." "He's real sick, ain't he?" "Yes, he is," Dr. Malcolm said with a deep sigh. "Yes, he is." "You ready to go, Mama Lucy?" Lucas asked, hoving into view from the waiting area. Lucila's reply was cut short by Gail Emory's hail. "Excuse me, Dr. Malcolm, is Matt Crower taking visitors today?" Focused on Malcolm, Gail took no notice of the assembled party. "Dr. Crower had a bad episode, Miss Emory. We've had to move him to the security wing for the time being." "How long is he going to be there?" "I honestly don't know," Dr. Malcolm said wearily. "If you folks will excuse me." "I'm afraid old Harvard flew back into the cuckoo's nest, Miss Emory." Buck's voice brought Gail back from her reverie. She suddenly became uncomfortably aware of who she was standing next to. "You must be that nice reporter my Lucas is always talking about," Lucila said, leaping quickly into the conversational breach. "I'm his grandmother, Lucila. I understand that your late aunt was Judith Temple. You know, I was a Temple before I married the Judge. I'll bet that if we put our heads together, we'd discover some common ancestors on our family tree . . ." Still burbling, Lucila took Gail's arm and steered her deftly out through the swinging doors. Temple and Buck, they go together, Caleb thought to himself. "She's gone, boy. You can look up now," Lucas informed his son who had been avoiding his cousin's eye. "You did something to Dr. Matt, didn't you?" Caleb said, accusingly. "Me? I just got here." Lucas put on his best injured look. "Sooner or later, boy, you're gonna have to face the fact that your friend just ain't wrapped too tight. Now you want a ride back to the boarding house or not?" "I'll walk." "It's a long walk back to town." "I'll walk." "Suit yourself." Lucas headed out to the parking lot. Lucila, still blathering merrily away, had Gail pinned against her red Mustang. Lucas grinned to himself. Time to do his good deed for the day and rescue the intrepid girl reporter from his dear old grandma. "What are you thinking about, Mama Lucy?" Lucas asked, handing his grandmother a tall glass of iced tea. "Just thinking about the past, honey. See that Mr. Perkins down there?" she asked, pointing to the main street down below his office window. "Cecil?" "Umm-hmmm. His daddy would never let anybody in my family buy anything on credit in his store. Said that us Temples couldn't be trusted to pay our bills. And that Maudie Ward?" "The one gettin' out of that blue sedan?" "That's her. I wasn't respectable enough to be invited to her Tuesday night bridge club, not even after I married the Judge. As for that Parks boy across the street . . ." "Used to take my lunch money every day at school." Lucas smiled grimly. "He's the one that's payin' now." Lucilla turned her gaze from the street to her grandson. "Make them pay, Lucas. Make them all pay." "Don't you worry, Mama Lucy. I will." "How are you feeling, Matt?" Dr. Malcolm asked. "A little better," Matt replied weakly. "Doctor?" he said as Malcolm turned to leave. "What?" "Don't give up on me." "I don't intend to, Matt." FINIS **DISCLAIMER: Stories/episodes that are associated with Virtual AG/Season Two, are based upon the television show, "American Gothic", which is the property of Shaun Cassidy, Renaissance Productions and CBS (apparently)... characters and storylines added to support this concept are the property of the writers acknowledged as such. PLEASE, DON'T SUE US!***