Viv, our Hmong immigrant nanny, worked part time, squeezing care of our daughter and us into her crowded school schedule. She saved our parental asses on most normal days. On crisis days, and those days were crisis days, her presence in our home was an undeserved gift from the parenting gods.
It was Viv who answered the phone when I called home after Gibbs’s appointment. Lauren was busy cleaning the master bathroom. I had to picture it in my mind: One hand was on her walking stick and one hand was in a vinyl glove, clutching a rag. She was scrubbing surfaces that an obsessive microbiologist would probably have already deemed surgically sterile. By the end of the day, I knew, the motor on the vacuum cleaner would need new bearings, our entire supply of cleaning fluids would be depleted, and virtually every square inch of our home would be a whole new category of clean.
I’d seen it before in the wake of previous exacerbations. I had a name for it. I called itsteroid clean.
Steroids don’t provide virgin energy; they aren’t some gentle supercaffeine. No, steroids, especially megadose steroids, provide agitation with all the negative consequences of the word. Impatience? In spades. Irritability? God, yes. Steroids are pure rocket fuel. I knew from experience that Lauren’s management of the extra horsepower that was coursing through her veins would be relatively adaptive for about twenty-four hours-thus the steroid clean house-but after that the agitation and the resulting sleeplessness would overwhelm her coping ability, and she would take on a few of the assorted characteristics of the Seven Dwarfs on amphetamines.
Grumpy on Speed would be the dominant Dwarf. He-or in this case, she-would be around virtually the whole time, only reluctantly sharing the stage with Sleepy on Speed and with Dopey on Speed. If Sneezy on Speed showed up, we were all in a fresh mess of trouble; during a previous steroid treatment his arrival had caused my poor wife to sneeze something like thirty-seven times in a row with hardly time for an inhale in between. Emily, our Bouvier, hated human sneezing and had barked in concert with Lauren’s honking for the last dozen sneezes or so. It was a memorable duet.
Sadly, Happy on Speed would make only the briefest of cameo appearances. If history were a guide, the cameo would take place during a narrow window in the first act.
I felt a stab of self-pity. For the next couple of weeks I’d be married to a most distasteful subset of the Seven Dwarfs on methamphetamine. Fortunately, my corrosive self-pity was swiftly dissolved by the solvent of compassion: Lauren not only had to live with the meth Dwarfs for a fortnight; she had the misfortune to be possessed by them.
She broke from scrubbing the beleaguered bathroom germs long enough to tell me what time she was seeing her neurologist later in the day, then gave the phone back to Viv, who informed me that Grace’s cold was almost all better and that she’d even managed to add enough filament tape to Emily’s paw to keep the clacking sound from driving Lauren even closer to distraction.
Viv also told me not to worry; she would take good care of us.
I told her she was great. And I started plotting ways to thank her.
Since I’d seen Gibbs so early that morning, Sharon Lewis was my second appointment of the week, not my first. The continued media attention that her breach of security at Denver’s airport was generating still haunted her. As did the fear of imminent arrest.
“Am I really the most selfish person in America?” she demanded.
Needless to say, I didn’t cast my vote on the question.
Obsessing was one of Sharon’s things, so she obsessed. Should she turn herself in? Should she get a lawyer? Was what she did so wrong? Really? Wouldn’t other people have done the same thing? Wouldn’t they?
Would I?
I didn’t answer that one, either.
Once the legal part of the crisis was resolved whatever way it was going to be resolved, Sharon had a long stint in therapy ahead of her. I was responding to her in the short term so that I would be prepared for what the future would inevitably bring.
Jim Zebid was late for his rescheduled appointment. He didn’t arrive until half our allotted time had vaporized into the therapeutic ether.
“Damn prosecutors” was how he started. “I swear they argue things just to waste my time.”
I tried not to allow my face to reveal anything back to Jim. My wife was one of those “damn prosecutors.” I knew it and he knew it.
After that prelude he dove right into the topic of the day. “I need to tell you that it’s hard for me to believe that you weren’t indiscreet with that little tidbit I told you last week. My guy’s firm that he didn’t tell anybody about selling blow to the judge’s hubby. I tend to believe him; he has no reason to be shooting his mouth off. I certainly didn’t tell anybody other than you. So that leaves you.”
The pointed implication was that I did have a good reason to be shooting my mouth off: to gossip with my wife. “Are you asking me something, Jim? Or is that just a flat-out accusation?”
He shrugged.
I registered some surprise at the fact that he didn’t seem particularly angry. Although his words were sharp, his tone was the same one he might have used to order take-out Chinese.
What did I do? I took the bait.
“I will repeat my earlier assurance. I told no one-no one-about our conversation last week. And I will repeat my earlier suspicion, Jim, that your accusation about the incident has to do with something between us-something in the therapeutic relationship.”
“Like what might that be?” These words were delivered in a tone that was totally dismissive. Litigators, in my experience, are more skilled at being dismissive than most people on the planet. They are able to imbue layers of nuance into their dismissiveness that most of us can only dream of. A law school trick of some kind, I suspected.
“Trust, maybe?” I tried to keep sardonic echoes from my own voice, but I wasn’t totally successful.
“Trust?” He slumped back and crossed his ankles. His wingtips were the size of river kayaks.
I waited.
“Yeah, well. Like my client trusts me right now? That kind of trust? Sure, sure, we can talk about trust, Alan-after I somehow end up convinced that you’re not just covering your ass. How’s that?”
The remainder of my Monday was more or less routine from a patient point of view.
Midafternoon I reached Lauren again. Her neurologist was hopeful that the steroids would arrest the exacerbation and felt confident that her good history of recovering from previous flare-ups boded well for her this time, too. To boost prophylaxis even more he started her on a statin, something she’d been discussing with him for a while, and he gave her some Ambien samples to help her try to get some sleep until the Solumedrol loosened its grip on her psyche.
She said, “I hope it works.”
“The Ambien?”
“Everything. The steroids, the statin, everything.”
“You scared, babe?”
“Yes. I’m afraid you’re getting tired of this.”
“Don’t worry about that. Worry about getting better.”
“Sam wasn’t worried.”
“I’m not Sherry, Lauren.”
“You must have second thoughts about marrying me. Everybody has limits,” she said.
I felt my pulse jump. I wanted to bark,“Of course I have limits. Of course I hate this. Of course I feel sorry for myself.”
I didn’t.
“Be honest,” she pleaded.
¡Dios mío. Hay un hacha en mi cabeza!
Lauren didn’t want my honesty. She wanted my reassurance. In all my years in clinical practice treating couples, I’d seen honesty wielded much more often as ahachathan as a caress. There was a time in the eighties when the relationship mantra from the women’s magazine gurus was“All honesty, all the time.”What a disastrous few years of misguided advice that was. Since then, whenever I heard a romantic partner whine for unabashed honesty in my office, I tested the waters for one of two things. First I listened for the call of insecurity begging for reassurance. Alternately, I listened for the diseased call of someone begging to be hurt or begging for the license to inflict pain.
With her earnest “be honest” I decided that Lauren was seeking the former and not the latter, and I prayed that I was right.
I wished I could touch her or kiss her nose. I couldn’t. So I said, “I’m not even close to my limit.” I didn’t say“I’m full of doubt,”or“I wish I were as good and generous a person as I’d like to be.”I didn’t say“I don’t know my limit, but I think it’s within range of my vision.”I didn’t.
No, I reassured her. Why? Because the reassurance was at least as true as my doubts and a whole lot truer than my fears.
She made a noise in response. Disappointment? Dismissal? Relief? I wished I knew.
The cream of reassurance that I was whipping was already in stiff peaks. I added more sugar until it tasted just right. “I’m not going anywhere, sweetie. I love you.”
It was all true. A little less than totally honest, but all true. Imperfect honesty in an imperfect world. Nobody, least of all Lauren, would have to spend the day removing anyhachasfrom theircabezas.
But the telephone was a terrible instrument for gauging the effectiveness of comfort, and I feared that my words were barely palliative.
I was packing up to go home when my pager vibrated on my hip. No message, but I recognized the number. I threw my briefcase and jacket back down on top of the desk and dialed deliberately, giving myself time to pull my thoughts together.
I wondered whether the state of Georgia was in the Central or Eastern Time zone. I guessed Eastern. It took me most of a minute to find a place where I could balance my current annoyance with my compassion and my friendship.
Sam answered. “Hey, Alan.”
I said, “Hi, Sam. What’s up?”
“I’m in Georgia.”
“Yeah.” I wanted to say I knew that already, but confidentiality rules. “What time is it there?”
“A little after eight. How pissed off are you?”
“Lauren’s sick. I don’t have enough energy to waste any of it being pissed off at you.”
“What’s going on with Lauren?”
I explained Lauren’s predicament as though I were talking to a friend, and Sam said all the right things in return. I felt better. Then I asked, “What about you. You feeling okay?”
“This-this road trip-has been kind of good for me, I think. Takes my mind off things. No chest pains so far. I’m watching my diet. Taking all my damn pills.”
“Exercise?”
“I walk when I can.”
“It’s important, Sam.”
“Yeah.”
The “yeah” was his way of indicating to me that it was time to move on.
“Nothing from Sherry?”
“Nothing. Simon’s okay, though; I talked to Angus.”
He paused long enough for me to respond. When I didn’t, he said, “She loves me. I love her.”
“You still worried that it’s not enough?”
“Things are complicated, you know? Life, marriage, relationships-it’s all complicated. Listen, I thought you might want to know that I think he might be alive. Sterling.”
“What? Really?”
“The whole accident/rescue thing is too goofy for words. Nothing came down in a way that gives me any confidence in a scenario of him rushing to help someone and accidentally ending up drowning in a raging river.”
“Like?”
“I’ll tell you later when I have more time. A for-instance, though-on one side of the car he was trying to reach was all this brush and trees and crap-you know, stuff to hold on to-on the other side was a muddy riverbank, real steep. Which one do you think he chose?”
“The mud.”
“Yeah. Like I said, goofy. I think if your IQ is anywhere near your golf score, you choose the side with the bushes on it. I keep trying to come up with excuses for him, but I’m failing.”
“You think he planned it so he went into the river, or maybe just found himself swimming and took advantage of serendipity?”
“Good question, Alan. I’m impressed. Turns out that he hesitated at the top long enough to think it all through. Actually drove past the accident scene once and then came back. So yeah, I’m thinking premeditation. I got Lucy checking to see what kind of swimmer he was.”
“I bet she finds out he was pretty good.” I was thinking that anybody who crewed on a big expensive yacht and gave diving demos had to be more than a little comfortable in the water.
“What do you mean?” Sam asked.
I realized how close I’d come to an unwitting disclosure. “Nothing. I just think Lucy might find something.”
“You could save her some work.”
“Maybe, but I won’t.”
He let it go. “In case you’re wondering, I’m planning on keeping my suspicions to myself until I have a little more evidence.”
He was telling me he wasn’t going to tell Gibbs he thought Sterling was alive. “Does that mean you’re coming back home now?”
“No, I’m not done looking.”
I allowed the buzz on the line to dominate for a few seconds before I asked, “Why, Sam? Why are you doing this?”
“This’ll sound goofy, but I figure Sterling can teach me something about marriage. Sterling and Gibbs both, actually.”
“What?” My “what?” was undiluted incredulity.
“Yeah.”
He was serious. I could tell. “That’s the craziest thing I think I’ve ever heard. And considering what I do for a living, that’s wild indeed.”
“Maybe it is crazy,” he said. “But it feels okay to me.”
“Sam, what if you’re right about Sterling? What if he’s not dead? What if he comes after her?”
“Gibbs?”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t think about that.” He was silent for a moment. “No, I don’t think he will.”
“I do.”
“Why?”
“He has reasons,” I said.
“Things I don’t know?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know what you know.”
“You know exactly what I don’t know. Just tell me, there are reasons?”
“Yes, for sure there are reasons,” I said. I counted the dead women on the fingers of my right hand.At least four reasons,I said to myself.
“Then I’ll call her and tell her that I’m not convinced he’s dead. And she should be careful. Can you get her someplace safe to stay?”
“Let’s say that offer is on the table.”
Again he grew quiet for a few seconds before he said, “I hate situations like this. I hate ’em. The exact same woman who wouldn’t let her kid walk out the front door to ride a bike without a damn bicycle helmet won’t take the simplest step-the simplest step-to keep her own head from getting bashed in by some guy she’s sure loves her. I hate those situations.”
“Yeah. Thanks.” I didn’t know what else to say. Silently and involuntarily my brain was busy translating “to keep her own head from getting bashed in” to a pidgin Spanish version containingcabezasandhachas. Silently but totally voluntarily, I cursed Diane.
“By the way,” Sam added, “I forgot to tell you: The tip the police got on that judge’s husband? About the cocaine? It came from inside the DA’s office. That’s all I could find out. Hope it helps.”
Helps? No, not exactly.All that meant to me was that Jim Zebid, if he learned the same facts that Sam had just disclosed to me-which he most likely would-would have more reason than he already did to believe that it was indeed I who had leaked the information about Jara Heller’s husband’s cocaine problems to Lauren, who had in turn acted on it through some colleague in the DA’s office.
Great.
My second attempt to get out of the office ended almost the exact same way the first had ended: My vibrating pager interfered just before I made it to the door. Once again I dumped my things on the desk. Once again I recognized the phone number on the pager screen.
Gibbs was breathless. She answered before I was certain her phone had even rung. “She just left. Just now! Two minutes ago! How could you? Howcouldyou? I trusted you!”
“Gibbs,” I pleaded. “Slow down, slow down. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“She just left. I can’t believe you told her!”
“Who is ‘she,’ Gibbs?”
“Reynoso. That-that-”
“What is it you think I told her? I haven’t spoken with her since Saturday. I didn’t even know she was still in town.” My defensiveness was too reflexive; I was getting frustrated about the repeated accusations from my patients about my indiscretions with their secrets. And it was showing.
Half a beat passed. Hesitation? A pause to reload? I wasn’t sure. But Gibbs’s fury was turned down a notch when she resumed. “You’re saying you didn’t tell her about the other women? You didn’t tell her what I told you this morning?”
It was apparent from her voice that she wasn’t particularly predisposed to believing that I hadn’t spilled the beans.
I, too, hesitated. The “other women” could have been the ones that Gibbs told me Sterling had slept with during their marriage, or they could have been the ones she told me he had killed. But a quick review convinced me that I hadn’t told Carmen Reynoso about either group of other women. I replayed the events in my head thoroughly enough to convince myself that I hadn’t even known about either group before that morning’s session with Gibbs.
Then I remembered that wasn’t exactly true. I had known about Gibbs’s concern about other murder victims for most of a week; I just hadn’t known details until that morning. But the reality was that I hadn’t revealed the facts of Gibbs’s concern to anyone. I was certain of it.
I said, “No, not a word.”
“You didn’t talk with her today?”
“No, Gibbs. I’ve been here at the office since this morning’s appointment with you. I haven’t shared the information you told me this morning with anyone. I wish you would give me permission, but until you do, I won’t share that information with anyone.”
“Well, I’ve never told anyone but you about these other women. How does she know?”
Damn good question.
Damn good.
Gibbs said good-bye after she asked me to change her regular appointment time on Tuesday. I offered her a slot that had just opened up on Wednesday.
I left my things on the desk and wandered around my office.
It wasn’t a small room, nor was it palatial. Fifteen by twenty-two feet, maybe. Space enough for a chunky desk, a file cabinet, a seating area, and a couple of bookcases. Three windows and a solitary French door brought in abundant light. Double doors-not side by side, but back to back-one opening in, one opening out, provided security and soundproofing to the interior hallway that Diane and I shared. We’d spent a bundle during remodeling constructing the interior walls of offset studs and had even set the extra-sound-retardant Sheetrock in channels, all in an effort to reduce noise transmission from the office to the hallway and from office to office. The entire back hallway was separated from the waiting area by a door with a deadbolt lock. After an intrusion years before, Diane’s husband had installed a sophisticated alarm system in the building, too.
I assured myself that there was no way someone could eavesdrop on a psychotherapy session in my office.
What about someone in Diane’s office? Could they have eavesdropped? No, that wasn’t possible. During the course of an average day the only sound I heard through our acoustically deadened adjoining wall was an occasional burst of Diane’s sharp laughter. I couldn’t recall a single instance of overhearing one of her patient’s words. The tones of normal conversation just didn’t make it through the walls.
I plopped down on the sofa and reviewed my day.
No matter from what angle I examined it, I couldn’t remember a solitary indiscretion on my part regarding Gibbs’s admissions to me about the other women. I hadn’t written any of the data in my case notes. And I hadn’t spoken a word about it to anyone.
Not even Sam? No, not even Sam.
Which meant one thing: The cops were developing the same information on their own.
What other conclusion was possible?
The answer to that question would come, unfortunately, soon enough.