The Venus Fix (28 page)

“How do you know he didn’t commit them?” She squeezed the opening of the straw closed, her fingers tight on the end of it.

“Because I’ve been working with him long enough to know he is not capable of doing what he’s confessed to. The only possibility, the only thing that makes any sense to me, is that he knows, or thinks he knows, who did kill those women and would rather take the fall for it than put the perpetrator through that.”

“Noble of him, isn’t it?” Her sarcasm only lasted for a moment and then she started crying.

I shot a look at Dr. Harris. He nodded, giving me permission to keep going, and remained where he was.

Her swing from forlorn misery to bitterness to tears didn’t surprise me. I knew from Alan how betrayed she’d felt by his addiction. Of all the vices he could have engaged in, he’d chosen the one that she felt was the biggest slap in the face.

“I know how angry you are. And you’re right to be angry. Alan degraded you. He broke every promise to you that he ever made.”

I was watching her carefully. Her posture became more rigid. She bit her bottom lip, holding herself back from speaking. A few seconds went by. Then she let out a breath and started to speak in the same sarcastic tone. “He deserves to be sitting in that jail. The great and lofty judge, behind bars.” Despite the tone, her tears still flowed, a total contradiction.

“I don’t know how you stood it for as long as you did. It must have been the worst thing you ever went through in your life. Having your husband turn to the Internet, turn to those young girls, abandoning you—”

“It was terrible.”

“I know. Horrendous.”

She was staring at me, intently, not bothering to wipe away the tears dripping down her cheeks, or even noticing that her nose was running. “He didn’t realize that I loved him all along. I should have told him. I should have touched him. I should have gotten help, sooner.”

“He’s done some very bad things. Terrible things,” I added.

“But he shouldn’t be in jail,” she whispered. “I want him to suffer and pay for what he did, but he shouldn’t be in jail.”

“But he thinks he should be. Do you know why?”

She nodded.

“Why?”

She didn’t answer.

“Kira, did he confess because he thinks you killed those women and he’s protecting you?”

She looked down at the cup in her hands and moved the straw backward and forward again. I watched her movements, waiting to hear her response.

After five minutes, I realized she wasn’t going to say anything else, and so I left.

In the elevator, I was struggling to put on my one glove when my cell phone rang. There was no one else in the elevator so I answered it. Allison was calling to tell me my next appointment had canceled, in case I wanted to come in later.

Downstairs the doors opened and I walked through the lobby. I got to the door and realized that I didn’t have my glove. Had I dropped it in the elevator? Just outside? I turned to retrace my steps.

Terry Meziac was twenty feet away from me, watching me. I froze. Was he following me? Why? Or was it just a coincidence? Alan’s wife was in this hospital. Alan was in jail. Maybe Terry was watching out over Kira for the judge, not watching me at all.

I saw the glove on the ground in front of the elevator. Bent down. When I straightened up he was gone. I spun around, did a quick search of the lobby, but I didn’t see him.

Of course he was there protecting Kira Rushkoff. He was a bodyguard.

A bodyguard with a record, Noah had told me.

I hurried outside in time to catch a taxi.

After I gave the driver the address, I turned in the seat, and as we sped off I watched out the rear window, but there was nothing to see.

“I
know what I thought I was going to get out of her, but I didn’t get it.”

“You actually
thought
she was going to confess and you were going to get a reprieve for your client,” Nina said. “You’re sure that he didn’t have anything to do with the murders and that he’s covering up for someone, and it makes perfect sense that the someone is his wife.”

We were sitting in Nina’s office. It was too cold to go out, so she’d ordered up lunch—tuna sandwiches on rye bread for both of us. She’d finished hers but I’d only taken a few bites of mine.

“I don’t understand love any better than I did forty years ago when I first started studying human psychology. We’re such pathetic victims of our emotions.”

I didn’t want to philosophize. We had to figure out a way for me to ethically talk to the police about Kira.

“How is your wrist?” Nina asked.

I looked down at the white cast. Like the snow, it was going to get gray eventually, long before it was time to remove it.

“It’s all right.”

“Do you still feel any pain?”

“A little ache. It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter. To me. You’re in pain and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“Oh, there’s a point to this. A little parable. Go ahead, O wise one.”

“If I could take your pain away, Morgan, I would. You feel that way about Dulcie. I’ve seen you with her when she’s hurt herself. But you’re not supposed to feel that way about your patients.”

“I can’t stand by and watch Alan take responsibility for something he didn’t do, that he thinks his wife did—something I’m not even sure his wife was capable of doing. Someone
did
kill those girls, and that person is still out there.”

“What is Alan’s problem, Morgan?”

“I’m not a neophyte like Blythe, I’ve been a therapist for years. I don’t appreciate the idea that you are handing me.”

“Play along. What’s his problem?”

“He has intimacy issues. His wife is a real woman. Dealing with her means dealing with his emotions. He doesn’t want to do that. So he shies away from sex with her. In the meantime, she can’t deal with his distance, so she distances herself further. She was powerful, she made a lot of money, got a lot of press, and she pushed it. She became more powerful, made more money and got more press. She gave herself an excuse. He won’t love me the way I want to be loved because I’m not needy enough. I’m too successful. It works. They split off. She works. He has the Net. It allows him gratification without emotional risk. He can find pleasure and excitement without a connection and still not feel as if he is really cheating on his wife. How am I doing?” I asked sarcastically.

Nina’s phone rang and I didn’t need to look at the clock on the wall to know that her next patient was there.

“I’m trying to help you,” she said.

“I know.”

But on the walk back to my office I wasn’t sure how she could help me. It wasn’t until I sat down at my desk that I finally figured out why Nina had asked me those precise questions.

How did she know enough about Alan to know that I had identified with him and felt that, if I could save him, if I could help him, it would mean that I could save myself, too? Not from Internet porn, but from a cold, emotional landscape that I kept running back to whenever I got too close to the sun.

T
he cell where he was being kept was in the Tombs in Lower Manhattan. I’d been there to see patients before, but no one had ever looked more out of place than Alan Leightman did.

“I don’t understand why you’re here. You’re a New York City Supreme Court judge,” I said, once we were sitting across from each other in the visitors’ room.

“I’m a killer, Morgan. That’s why I’m here.” He couldn’t even make eye contact with me when he said it. “I deserve this.” Now he looked at me. That part was true. He didn’t think he was entitled to any comfort or leniency. He was a successful man who believed he was a bad boy and should be punished.

“It was kind of you to come down here. You know, you shouldn’t feel you failed with me.”

“I’m not so sure. My job was to help you see yourself more clearly. To balance the real person you’ve become with the tortured kid you were. To give you the tools to fight your way out of your addiction. I didn’t do any of that. If I had, you wouldn’t be taking the blame for this.”

He looked away from me again. “That’s not what I’m doing.”

“You can’t convince me of that. I met with Kira.”

“That was kind of you. How is she?” He had leaned forward, engaged again. Concerned. More connected to me now.

“I don’t know, Alan. There’s no way for me to measure—I didn’t know her before. But I don’t think she’s doing very well.”

“I want you to be her therapist. I want you to take over.”

“I can’t do that. Technically, you are still my patient. I can’t treat both you and your wife. Besides, she already has a good doctor.”

“You’re sure he’s good enough?”

“Alan, no one is good enough to help Kira with what’s bothering her. She knows that you didn’t kill anyone and she’s racked with guilt that you are doing this to protect her.”

His whole body went rigid. “What are you talking about? Protect her?” He was suddenly nervous, twisting around in his seat, looking behind him, then to the side, then to the other side, checking to see if anyone was listening.

“She wanted to punish you. She wanted you to worry that your addiction had driven her crazy. But what if that’s all she wanted? What if you’re wrong and she didn’t kill those women, either? Did you think this through?”

He started to speak, and then stopped. No matter how much pain Alan had been in when he came to my office, no matter how angry he had been or how ashamed he’d felt, I’d never seen him like this. His strong bone structure seemed to have softened. His eyes, which had expressed wisdom even when they had glazed over with embarrassment, were now filled with hopelessness.

“Alan, why won’t you talk about this with me?”

He searched for the words, speaking with halts between the phrases. “If Kira…if she…whatever she had to do…everything is my fault. I won’t explain it any more than that. Don’t ask me to. Don’t ask her to. This is just how it has to be, Morgan.”

“Your wife is sick over what you’ve done.”

He nodded. “What wife wouldn’t be sick to find out her husband had murdered three young women?”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“I don’t want to talk about what you mean.”

Somewhere someone cackled and let out a string of expletives. Neither of us tried to talk over it.

“I have put men here,” he said.

Our eyes locked.

“Alan, you don’t belong here.”

“How do you know? Don’t you see? I’m where I need to be. There is evidence on my computer that I visited those women. Evidence on those women’s computers that I contacted them. That I asked them to use those tainted products. If I didn’t do this, Dr. Snow, who else but my wife could have used my e-mail account? Who else knew that I visited those sites? That I had, indeed, watched those women over and over.”

“But what if you are wrong? What if she’s just trying to make you think she did it. What if—”

“Dr. Snow, listen to me.” His voice was low and urgent. “There is proof on my computer that I visited those sites on days and times when I did not go there. Clearly Kira went there. She followed my trail. She watched those women. I told you that weeks ago. There is proof on those women’s computers that I sent them e-mail asking them to use the items that were poisoned. What don’t you understand about what I’m telling you?”

I ignored the sarcastic snipe. The pressure he was under excused him.

“Alan, do you understand that the police won’t keep working this case as long as you are here? If your wife didn’t do this, and if you didn’t do this, then there’s someone out there who did kill those women. I know what I’m asking of you, but what if I’m right? What if you go to jail
and I’m right and whoever has done this does it again? Then you really will have someone’s blood on your hands. You’ll be a judge responsible for a murder. How will you live with that?”

He shook his head. “And what if you are wrong? What would happen if Kira went on trial? Can you imagine what that would do to her? To her reputation? Her stature? Her sanity? It’s been hard on her. She’s given up so much to be Kira Rushkoff, Esquire.” His voice was pleading again. “She doesn’t have anything left to give up.

“What happened to your wrist?” he asked, suddenly noticing my arm.

I shrugged. “I slipped.”

“Is it broken?”

I nodded.

“It will heal. In six, seven weeks.” There was a weight to his words. And he was looking off into the distance as if he could see the day when my cast would come off and he knew where he would be by then, what would have happened to him.

“You can’t talk to the police about any of this. You understand that, don’t you? No matter how sure you are of what you think, I will not allow it. You do not want to test me on this, do you understand?”

“Are you threatening me, Alan? Are you trying to scare me?”

“If that’s what it takes, yes. You will not discuss this with anyone. Is that understood?”

“Do you have Terry Meziac following me?”

Like his wife had done earlier that day, Alan stopped answering.

The frustration I felt made me want to scream and cry at the same time. “I want you to know I had no intention of talking to anyone without your consent. You didn’t have to scare me, too. But you have.”

And then for the first time since I’d gotten there, I saw Alan’s mouth lift. His smile was the saddest I’d ever seen.

“Call him off, Alan. I won’t bother you anymore. You’re on your own.”

T
he whole way back to the office, I forced myself not to turn around to see if anyone was following me. When I got out in front of the office, I didn’t look over my shoulder to search for Terry Meziac. I knew that even if he was following me, he wasn’t there to hurt me, but to scare me. And no one could do that to me anymore.

I was getting a cold and my throat was sore. I wanted to go home and crawl into bed. Instead, I popped a throat lozenge, made some tea and saw my next patient. And then the next. I was waiting for Blythe when Allison called. “I forgot to tell you, the day you were out—yesterday—Blythe canceled, and I gave a new patient her spot. She’s on her way up.”