Chapter 4 #2
“I can’t go back to work until I’ve undergone this session, so I’ll stay for the full fifty minutes. No telling how many bad actors are getting away with heinous crimes while I’m in here, but my former friend, now boss, John Bowie thinks my time is better spent talking to you.”
He took another look around the room. “And to be honest, this beats trying to chase down bad guys. You’ve got a real cushy spot here for relaxing, and it’s not my money the PD is wasting.”
“You think this is a waste of time and money?”
“What gave me away?”
She tapped the end of the pen against the notepad. “If a patient doesn’t seek help through therapy, it rarely yields the desired result.”
“Then we’re SOL already. That stands for shit out of luck.”
“Yes, I know.”
“I wonder why it’s not SOOL.” He waited. She didn’t react. “Tough room,” he said under his breath. Then, “I didn’t seek anything, Dr. Reede. This was forced on me, so don’t expect to yield a fucking thing. Oops, sorry. My bad. Slip of the tongue.”
She didn’t bat an eye. “In here, you’re free to say whatever you like.”
“Truly? And you won’t tell anybody?”
“I’m bound by law not to.”
He gave her another grin. “See, that was a test. Because I already knew that you’re bound by confidentiality.
Law enforcement officers despise it. I can’t count the number of times your rules have been a pain in the ass when we’re trying to nail somebody, and you psychology folks refuse to give over incriminating confessions confided to you. ”
“To turn over information requires a court order.”
“Tell me,” he said, grimacing. “And it’s like pulling teeth to get a judge to issue one, and usually his or her honor outright refuses.”
“Unless the patient poses an imminent threat to someone.”
“Right. Imminent, i.e., before the fact. After the fact, a killer can relate to you in gory detail how he’s murdered somebody, and enjoyed the hell out of it, and you don’t tell.”
She pointed to the wall behind her. Hanging on it was a framed doctorate diploma.
“I get it, I get it,” he said. “Sacred oath and all. But…” He sat up straighter, leaned toward her, and lowered his voice.
“Don’t you ever break the rules? Or bend them?
Just a little bit? Hmm? I mean, how do I know that as soon as I walk out of here, you’re not going to get John Bowie on the horn and repeat everything I’ve said to you? ”
Despite his taunting, which she ignored, she made a notation on her notepad. “Tell me about yourself.”
Damn, she was a cool customer. If he stuck with this, her reserve would be an obstacle he would have to work around.
He was accustomed to winning people over by joking.
A smart-aleck remark could defuse a dicey situation almost as effectively as producing a lethal weapon.
A well-placed wisecrack could disarm, or at least distract, even the toughest of toughies.
She appeared about as tough as a marshmallow, yet, so far, his jests had bounced right off her. But he wasn’t done yet.
He flopped back and resumed his slouch. “Something about myself? Let’s see.” He snapped his fingers. “Just the smell of Brussels sprouts makes me want to hurl.”
She set her pen on the notepad and moved it aside. Placing her elbows on her knees—which he had to admit were a distraction—and looking at him earnestly, she said, “I want to help you, Mitch.”
His insolent smile vanished along with his levity. He narrowed his eyes. “Help me do what, exactly? Learn to cope with my ‘circumstances’? What all did John tell you? Or are you bound by professional privilege to keep the lid on that, too?”
“My confidentiality applies to you, not him.”
“Then tell me what he told you about me.”
“That you have a sharp and sardonic wit, which, in the last few minutes, I’ve experienced for myself.”
“It hasn’t thawed you any,” he mumbled.
“You definitely use it to your benefit. To charm, absolutely. But also to hide behind.”
“Hide behind?” He frowned. “How’s that?”
She gave him a look that said she knew he understood her perfectly, but she expanded anyway. “Lieutenant Bowie said he can gauge how troubled you are by the frequency of your wisecracks.”
“He said that? Huh. Maybe he should go for one of those.” He raised his chin toward the diploma on the wall.
“I’ll tell you one thing, my joke-cracking beats his brooding.
He can sulk like nobody’s business. For days sometimes.
You wouldn’t believe that a guy as mean-looking as he is could be so pouty.
Drives Beth—that’s his wife—drives her crazy when he’s in one of his funks.
She’s finally learned, as I did years ago, to leave him be. Eventually he’ll shake it off.”
She heard him out, but then picked up where she’d left off. “He told me that you don’t panic in a crisis situation. When things go wrong—”
“We use terms like ‘fubar’ or ‘tits up.’”
“—you’re the person he wants at his back. He trusts you to come through for him. You and he have a close personal friendship and working relationship.”
“Both of which have gone tits up.”
“Why? What happened between you? When did you stop playing practical jokes on each other?”
“Come on, Dylan. Can I call you Dylan? I wouldn’t be here if things were rosy between John and me. He told you that I was screwing up, didn’t he?”
“He told me he suspects that you’re suffering from post-traumatic stress.”
He looked away from her, stretched his neck, readjusted his shoulders, drew his legs in, and rubbed his hands up and down his thighs. “Did he tell you the nature of that trauma?”
When he looked at her again, she gave him a small nod.
He noticed a tiny twitch at the corner of her lips and a sorrowful blink of her eyes, which held steady on his.
Those subtle indications of sympathy were more effective than an outpouring of platitudes would have been.
He couldn’t have stomached that. He’d heard enough banalities to last him a lifetime. For all the goddamn good they’d done.
He didn’t say anything for some time, his eyes roving around the room, his jaw working in spite of his trying to keep it from clenching. He was aware of her watching him closely.
Eventually, he came back to her. “Did John tell you that after…” He cleared his throat. “That after, I developed a fondness for the grape? Actually, that’s a figure of speech. My drink of choice was gin, and it’s not usually made from grapes.”
“Tell me about that.”
“About gin? Well, it’s made from various grains with lots of botanicals added, but always juniper berries. In mid-nineteenth-century England, so many people got hooked on it, they nicknamed it blue ruin. Do you know why they called it that? Do you know that bit of trivia? Do you like trivia?”
She ignored his bullshit. “I was told you went on and off the wagon.”
He gave a definitive nod. “Yessss. Several times. Bowie, who was still my friend then, covered for me.”
“Until he’d had enough, he said.”
“Yeah. One morning when I failed to come to work, he showed up at my house and found me…” He shuddered.
“I’ll spare you the details, but it was a messy scene.
John wasn’t touched by my, uh… illness. Rather than show some compassion, the son of a bitch drew a line in the sand. It was either AA or unemployment.
“So, I signed up for AA. Secretly, of course. Out of town. He and I kept it hush-hush. Beth knew. No one else outside our tight little circle. Wanna hear the twelve steps? I thought the ten commandments were rigid, but whew.”
Unfazed, she said, “Lieutenant Bowie told me that you got sober and stayed sober for six months.”
“Um-huh.”
“Until last Saturday night, when you suffered a relapse.”
“Relapse? That’s a nice way of putting it.”
“Bowie believes it was prompted by the date.”
He chewed the inside of his cheek, saying nothing. Immediately after realizing that he was jiggling his knee, he forced it to be still.
Softly she asked if he would like some water and motioned toward the bottles on the end table. “No thanks.” Then, “There’s not a clock in here. Is that on purpose? How much time is left?”
“Don’t worry about the time,” she said. “Is Bowie wrong about the anniversary date contributing to the episode last week?”
“I can say anything I want to, right?”
“Yes.”
“I can also sit here like a stump and say nothing at all, right?”
“Yes. But sitting here in hostile silence wouldn’t be very helpful.”
“Not helpful to you. But my hostile silence could be just the therapy I need.” He stood, picked up his jacket, and pulled it on.
“I don’t think you and I would ever be a good fit.
” He came this close—this close—to adding a sexual context to that, but thought better of it.
“It’s been nice knowing you, but I’m outta here, and I ain’t coming back. ”
She had stood up along with him. “I wish you would reconsider.”
“I’ll bet you do. You’ll miss out on a paying gig. The mandated sessions with me could really add up. Let’s see, two a week for six weeks.” He started counting on his fingers. “That’s—”
“Mitch,” she said in a chastening tone. “Insulting me is no more effective than wisecracking. Please think about—”
“I’ll tell you what you should think about, doc. If you’re getting men in this cozy little nook of yours with all the throw pillows, you really should consider wearing sensible shoes, a longer skirt, an ill-fitting cardigan, and a different face.”
She gave him another look of reproof. “Sorry, that tactic doesn’t work on me, either.” She waited for a beat, then said, “Let’s sit back down and talk calmly and reasonably. Because if you refuse these sessions, Lieutenant Bowie—”
“Bowie can go—Read my mind.”
“We don’t have to address the hard subjects until you’re ready to. We can start with—”
“My birth? Childhood? The loss of my virginity? Work up from there to last Saturday night and my fall from Saint John’s grace?”
“I have this same time on Thursday morning reserved for you. Please be here.”
“Sorry. Can’t make it.”
“Then we’ll work around your schedule. I’ll see you any time you say.”
The quip he had planned to say died on his lips. Instead, he jerked his head back and gave her a long, measuring look. “No,” he drawled, “I don’t think you will. See me as a patient, that is. In fact, I can guarantee that you won’t.”
He reached out and curved his hand around the back of her neck. Pulling her forward and up to him, he kissed her. Swiftly but with impact. Then he released her just as suddenly.
Holding her wide, disbelieving gaze, he smiled and dabbed at a damp spot on his lower lip with the back of his hand. “As rules of doctor–patient conduct go, that’s a real no-no, isn’t it, Dr. Reede? Ergo, we’re done.”
Then he went over and opened the door into the waiting room. “Screw the escape hatch. I’ll go out the way I came in.”