Rage (43 page)

He
watched as she walked to her door, stood there as she crossed the threshold.
Returned shaking his head.

I
said, “What was the joke?”

“The—
Oh, that. She said ‘You’re sending me off like a little birdie out of the nest
chirp chirp chirp.’ ” He jammed the key in the ignition. “It caught me off
guard. For a second, she seemed kinda cute.” He frowned. “That kiss. I need to
wash my face.”

* * *

A
block later, he said, “She’s completely nuts but everything she told us fits.
What do you think of Daney’s sperm-obsession?”

“All
part of his me-obsession. What interests me is that right from the beginning
Daney wanted to focus blame on Malley. Why would that be unless he knew Malley
before Kristal’s murder and had some reason to resent him? I brought up the
rodeo to Weider and she looked at me as if
I
was crazy. So Daney lied
about hearing it from her. He knew Barnett eight years ago or did research.”

“Maybe
the swinger’s scene, like you suggested.”

“Or a
tamer possibility,” I said. “Now that we know we’ve got two couples with infertility
problems.”

“A
clinic,” he said. “They met at a damned fertility clinic?”

“Weider
said Cherish had ‘finally’ given up on having her own children. That implies
she had tried to conceive for a while. That had to include medical treatment.”

“Chatting
in the waiting room, the old misery loves company bit.”

“Until
Drew and Lara took the friendship a step further,” I said. “The two spouses who
just happened to be fertile. It’s possible neither of them knew that and Lara’s
pregnancy caught them by surprise. Drew had to figure she’d terminate because
of the repercussions with Barnett. But she refused. Having a baby meant more to
her than her marriage.”

“All
of a sudden the Malleys are having a baby and the Daneys aren’t.”

“Leaving
Cherish with a whole lot of frustration and anguish. Three guesses who she’d
vent to.”

“She
gets on Drew’s case, pushes for more fertility treatment.”

“Which
would be expensive and a monumental hassle for something Drew didn’t want in
the first place. Either he agreed and it didn’t work, or he refused. In either
case, Cherish switched her goal to adoption. Became obsessed with it.”

“Idiot
thinks he’s the cleverest guy in the world and all of a sudden his life’s
getting knotted up because of a problem
he
helped create. Talk about insult
added to injury.”

“So
he decided to eliminate the source of the insult,” I said. “Turned Kristal into
an object lesson for Cherish. ‘See the joy babies bring, hon?’ At the same
time, he was able to play out his God fantasy and free himself of any future
demands from Lara. And as long as he was cleaning house, why not get a movie
deal out of it?”

He
hunched and scowled and gripped the wheel, as relaxed as a student driver. Salt
air blew through the car’s open windows. Charming neighborhood. How long before
Sydney Weider imploded?

Milo
said, “Cleaning house permanently. Kristal, then Troy because he killed
Kristal, then Nestor because
he
killed Troy. And Lara either because she
wanted to get serious with him or she had figured out he had something to do with
Kristal’s death.”

“Jane
Hannabee, too, because Daney couldn’t be certain Troy hadn’t said something to
his mother.”

“And
now Rand . . . think Drew did any of them himself or were they
contract deals?”

“Whoever
did Lara did Rand. My money’s on Daney for those. Hannabee could’ve gone either
way.”

“Six
bodies,” he said. “And there’s something I neglected to mention. I checked for
any Mirandas on Daney’s foster list. Nothing close.”

“Why
would Daney take in a ward and not bill the state?”

“Why,
indeed.”

“Oh,”
I said.

“Now
how the hell am I going to prove any of it with no evidentiary connections?”

I had
no answer.

“Yeah,”
he grumbled. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

* * *

He
dropped me home at one-forty p.m. Allison hadn’t called my cell and there were
no messages on my machine.

In
five minutes, she’d be between patients. I watched the clock, had a cold cup of
coffee, phoned her office when the big hand touched the nine.

“Hi,”
she said. “I’m in the middle of something, promise to call as soon as I can.”

“Emergency?”

“Something
like that.”

“We’re
okay?”

Silence.
“Sure.”

* * *

It
was seven-thirty when I heard from her.

“Emergency
resolved?”

“This
morning Beth Scoggins went into a changing room at work and locked herself in.
It took awhile before anyone noticed. When they found her she was sitting on
the floor, curled up, sucking her thumb. She was unresponsive, had wet her
pants. The manager dialed 911 and the ambulance took her to the U. They gave
her a physical and a tox scan, then some psych residents tried out their
interview skills on her. Finally, she let someone know I was her therapist and
an attending psychiatrist called me. It was him I was talking to when you
phoned. I canceled my afternoon patients and went over there, just got back to
the office.”

“How’s
she doing?”

“Still
regressed but she’s starting to talk. About things she never talked about
before.”

“More
about Daney or— ”

“I
can’t get into it with you, Alex.”

“Sure,”
I said. “Allison, if I had anything to— ”

“She’s
obviously been sitting on a mountain of issues— a volcano. I was probably too
laid-back, should’ve worked harder at opening her up.”

Same
thing, nearly word for word, that Cherish Daney had said about Rand.

This
was different. Allison was trained. Cherish had been running with scissors.

Out
of her element.

Or
maybe not.

My
head flooded with what-ifs.

I
said, “I’m sure you handled it optimally.” That came out hollow.

“Whatever.
Listen, I’ve got to phone all those cancellations, rearrange my schedule,
extend my hours, then go back to the hospital. It’s going to be awhile before
we can . . . socialize. Don’t even suggest to Milo that he’ll
ever have access to this girl.”

“It’s
not an issue.”

“I
know what’s at stake, Alex, but we’re on opposite sides on this one. I’m sorry,
but that’s the way it has to be.”

* * *

Three
hours later, she was at my door, dangling her car keys. Her hair was tied up in
a careless way I’d never seen before, black as the night sky behind her. One of
her stockings sported a run from knee to mid-calf, the polish on some of her
nails was chipped, and her lipstick had faded. A picture I.D. badge was clipped
to the lapel of her black cotton suit. Temporary privileges, Department of
Psychiatry. Her eyes, always deep-set, were captives in fatigue-darkened
sockets.

She
said, “I haven’t meant to be distant. Though I still have problems— big
problems— with the whole deception thing.”

“Have
any dinner yet?”

“Not
hungry.”

“C’mon
in.”

She
shook her head. “Too tired, Alex. I just wanted to say that.”

“Come
in anyway.”

Her
chin trembled. “I’m exhausted, Alex. Won’t be good company.”

I
touched her shoulder. She edged past me as if I were an obstacle. I followed
her into the kitchen, where she tossed the keys and her purse on the table and
sat staring at the sink.

* * *

She
refused food but accepted hot tea. I brought a mug with some toast.

“Persistent,”
she said.

“So
I’ve been told.” I took a chair across from her.

“It’s
ridiculous,” she said. “I’ve had patients go through worse than this. A lot
worse. I think it’s a combination of this particular patient— maybe I let the
countertransference get out of hand— and your being involved.”

She
raised the mug to her lips. “When I met you, what you do . . .
it turned me on. The whole police thing, the whole heroic thing— here was
someone in my profession doing more than sitting in an office and listening. I
never told you this, but I’ve had hero fantasies of my own. Probably because of
what happened to me. I guess I’ve been living
through
you. On top of
that you’re a sexy guy, no question. I was a sucker.”

What
“had happened” to her was sexual assault at age seventeen. Warding off
attempted robbery and gang rape years later.

She
eyed her purse and I knew she was thinking about the shiny little gun. “What
you do
still
turns me on, but this has been a rude awakening. I’m
realizing that maybe there are aspects of it that aren’t healthy.”

“Like
deception.” And holding down a woman’s ankles so a detective can hog-tie her.

Her
eyes turned the color of gas jets. “You flat-out lied to her, Alex. A girl you
didn’t know, with no consideration of the risks. I’m sure most of the time it’s
no big deal, just a fib in the service of law enforcement and no one gets hurt.
This time . . . maybe in the long run it
will
be good for
her. But now . . .”

She
put the mug down. “I keep telling myself if she was this close to the edge she
would’ve been tipped over eventually. Maybe it’s my ego that’s wounded. I got
caught unawares. . . .”

I
touched her hand. She didn’t touch back.

“Deception’s
okay for Milo, I understand the kind of people cops come into contact with. But
you and I took the same licensing exam and we both know what our ethics code
says.”

She
freed her hand. “Have
you
thought it through, Alex?”

“I
have.”

“And?”

“I’m
not sure my answer’s going to make you happy.”

“Try
me.”

“When
I see patients in a therapeutic setting, the rules apply. When I work with
Milo, the rules are different.”

“Different
how?”

“I’d
never hurt anyone intentionally, but there’s no promise of confidentiality.”

“Or
truthfulness.”

I
didn’t answer. No sense mentioning the man I killed a few years ago. Clear
self-defense. Sometimes his face came to me in dreams. Sometimes I manufactured
the faces of his unborn children.

“I
don’t mean to attack you,” said Allison.

“I
don’t feel attacked. It’s a reasonable discussion. Maybe one we should’ve had
earlier.”

“Maybe,”
she said. “So basically, you compartmentalize. That doesn’t wear on you?”

“I
deal with it.”

“Because
bad people sometimes get what’s coming to them.”

“That
helps.” I worked hard at keeping my tone even. Saying the right things though I
did feel attacked. Thinking about six bodies, maybe seven, no obvious solution.
Thinking about Cherish Daney in a way that I couldn’t let go of.

Allison
said, “Is deception a big part of what you do?”

“No,”
I said. “But it happens. I try never to grow glib, but I rationalize when I
have to. I’m sorry about what happened to Beth and I’m not going to make
excuses. The only lie I told her was that I was researching foster parenting in
general. I don’t see that as a factor in her breakdown.”

“Getting
into
the whole issue precipitated her breakdown, Alex. She’s an
extremely vulnerable girl who should never have been drawn into a police
investigation in the first place.”

“There
was no way to know that.”

“Exactly.
That’s why we learned about discretion and taking our time and thinking things
through. About doing no harm.”

“Witnesses
are often vulnerable,” I said.

Long
silence.

She
said, “So you’re fine with all this.”

“Would
I have approached Beth directly if I’d known she was going to decompensate? Of
course not. Would I have taken another approach— like going through you? You
bet. Because a lot is at stake, even more than I’ve told you, and she was a
potential source of crucial information.”

“What
more is at stake?”

I
shook my head.

“Why
not?” she said.

“There’s
no need for you to know.”

“You’re
mad so you’re doing a tit for tat.”

“I’m
not mad, I want to keep you from the bad stuff.”
The way I used to keep
Robin.

“Because
I can’t hope to understand.”

I
thought you did. But it’s too much ugly.

“There’s
just no reason for you to get involved, Allison.”