When he was little, Carlton Lassiter had, unlike any other child in the history of medicine, loved going to the doctor’s office.
It wasn’t the waiting room filled with toys and tattered copies of Highlights for Children that attracted him, although he did love studying the adventures of Goofus and Gallant. And it wasn’t the lollipop or similar bribe that would be offered if he managed to make it through the appointment without bursting into hysterical screams.
What he loved about those visits was precisely what most children hated. The biting cold of the stethoscope against his chest. The invasion of personal privacy when the nurse jammed the thermometer under his tongue or any other place she might choose. And most of all the harsh jab and searing pain of the hypodermic needle.
It wasn’t that little Carlton Lassiter had been a mini-masochist. Even as he welcomed these insults he knew how unpleasant they were.
But he also understood instinctively what the other children couldn’t begin to imagine: that the world existed in a constant state of war between the forces of order and those of chaos. And there was never any doubt in his mind which side he chose. Every indignity inflicted on him by the medical profession was actually a blow against chaos-in this case the chaos that existed to disrupt the order of the body’s natural workings.
It was possible that in his preschool days Lassiter was not able to articulate this philosophy quite so precisely, and that he had come to the understanding only in his adult years. But the doctor’s office was always a happy place for him, and the colder and less pleasant it was, the better it made him feel.
So even though Lassiter shared every police officer’s distrust of department therapists, he felt a sense of security as he pulled his cruiser into the parking lot of the low white hacienda that housed Dr. Olivia McCormick’s offices. Doctors meant order, and order was always good.
But as he stepped into the waiting room that sense of security began to slip away. Lassiter believed in changing primary care physicians every year so that he’d always have a new set of eyes to catch anything the last pair had missed, which meant he had plenty of experience with doctors’ waiting rooms. And he knew what they were supposed to be like. First, there was the lighting. It needed to be the harshest fluorescent available, to render any trace of illness instantly apparent. The walls should be painted glossy white and the floor covered in matching linoleum or thin carpet to give the light plenty of hard surface to bounce off of. There should be chairs molded out of plastic that were impossible to sit in without slipping onto the floor unless you kept both feet planted at all times. Ideally the molded plastic should have cracked in several places to pinch his skin whenever he shifted position. And there should be a sliding glass window behind which sat a hatchet-faced receptionist whose only interest in life was making the patients wait as long as possible to give whatever germs they were carrying the chance to manifest themselves.
Dr. Olivia McCormick’s waiting room was all wrong. It was furnished in the warmest of greens and browns. There were soft sofas against the walls, which were themselves covered with subtly colored fabrics. Blooming flowers trailed out of hanging pots, and soothing music played softly through hidden speakers. There wasn’t even a receptionist to demand proof of insurance. Instead, as Lassiter came in-and even before he’d had the chance to step back outside and make sure he hadn’t walked by mistake into one of the few remaining Good Earth restaurants that had escaped America’s reconnection with sanity after the fern-bar-meets-sprouts craze of the midseventies-an inside door swung open and a kindergarten teacher leaned out.
“Detective Lassiter?” she said in a voice that promised juice and cookies. “Please come this way.”
Although her graying ponytail and loose, flowing tie-dyed dress suggested an afternoon to be spent learning to tie his shoes followed by nap time, Lassiter realized that this was supposed to be the doctor.
Lassiter didn’t have a problem with female doctors. Some of his favorite GPs had been women. But they had also been warriors in the battle against death, disease, and decay. They wore starched white lab coats and jammed their instruments in whichever orifice they chose with no consideration that they were working on anything resembling a sentient human being.
This one, he knew, was no warrior. Confronted with chaos, she’d invite it in for a chat and rap about what made it so disorganized.
But there was no way for him to leave now. The chief had made it very clear that he needed to talk to the department therapist before she’d clear him to go back to work on his case. And he would make any sacrifice if it would let him bring Professor Langston Kitteredge to justice.
Lassiter let McCormick lead him into her inner office and sit him down in a comfortable armchair upholstered in soft brown leather. She sat opposite him on what looked like an overgrown footstool.
“I want to let you know I’m here to help, Detective,” she said in a voice so calming he could almost feel it smoothing his hair. “My only goal is to get you over your trauma as quickly as possible.”
“In that case, consider yourself a success,” Lassiter said. “Trauma was over before it began.”
The smile she’d had fixed on her face since the first second he saw her wavered for a second, then came back. “No trauma at all?”
“No trauma, no drama, that’s my mantra,” he said. Actually, Lassiter had never had a mantra, considering such things foolish wastes of breath, but he figured it might move things along more quickly if he spoke in a language she could understand.
“But there was quite a bit of drama, wasn’t there?” she said. “I read your report. An armed suspect used you as a hostage in order to escape custody, didn’t he?”
Lassiter cursed under his breath. He’d known it was a mistake to write up the extended report the chief had asked for. Only for internal use, she’d said. Well now he saw exactly what “internal” meant-anyone who felt a right to meddle in the internal aspects of his life.
“All in a day’s work,” Lassiter said. “I admit, it was not a pleasant experience, and it left with me a bad taste in my mouth. But I also know how to get that taste out-a special kind of mouthwash called bringing the scum-bag back in. So thanks for seeing me so quickly, but I’d better get back out on those mean streets.”
He bounded out of his chair and headed for the door.
“We still have most of our hour left, Detective Lassiter,” McCormick said in the same calm tone. “I would really appreciate it if you’d stay and talk about what happened this morning.”
“Maybe we could do it another day,” Lassiter said, one hand firmly clutching the doorknob. “Once the perp is in custody I’ll have plenty of time to chat.”
He turned the knob and opened the door. But before he could step through, he heard a voice from behind him. In certain superficial ways it sounded like Olivia McCormick. But underneath there was a tone of steel, like the indestructible armature under a Terminator’s skin.
“If you walk out that door, you will never walk back into the Santa Barbara Police Department,” the voice said.
Lassiter turned back and saw the skinless Terminator version of Olivia McCormick sitting where the kindergarten teacher had just been. She still had the same ponytail and hippie dress, but there was a light in her eyes that looked like it could kill from this distance.
“Excuse me?” Lassiter said.
“You are on medical leave pending my report,” McCormick said. “Until I sign off on your condition, you are suspended. And believe me when I say this applies not only to the SBPD but to any law enforcement agency you can think of, including the school district crossing guard corps. So unless you want to spend the rest of your working life as a security guard in a shopping mall, you will sit down and start talking.”
Lassiter’s legs marched him back to the comfortable chair and dropped him in.
The steely light went out in McCormick’s eyes and she leaned forward, once again the kindergarten teacher.
“So, Detective,” she said gently, “let’s talk about how you’re feeling.”