“The patient’s name?” the pharmacist asked.
“They’re for me,” Ricky said.
The pharmacist hesitated. “These aren’t real good medications to be mixing, Doctor Starks,” he said. “You should be very careful about the dosages and combinations.”
“Thank you for your concern. I’ll be careful . . .”
“I just wanted you to know that overdoses could be lethal.”
“I’m aware of that,” Ricky said. “But too much of anything can kill you.”
The pharmacist considered this a joke and laughed. “Well, I suppose so, but with some things, at least we’d go out with a smile on our face. My delivery guy will be over with these within the hour. You want me to put these on your account? It’s been a while since you used it.”
Ricky thought for a moment, then said, “Yes. Absolutely.” He felt an abrupt twinge of pain within him, as if the man had inadvertently sliced Ricky’s heart with the most innocent of questions. Ricky knew the last time he’d used the account at the pharmacy had been for his wife, as she lay dying, for morphine to help mask her pain. That had been at least three years earlier.
He stepped on the memory, trying to mentally crush it beneath his sole. He took a deep breath and said, “And have the deliveryman ring the doorbell in exactly this fashion, please: three short rings, three long rings, three short rings. That way I’ll know it’s him and open up.”
The pharmacist seemed to think for an instant, before asking, “Isn’t that Morse code for S.O.S.?”
“Correct,” Ricky answered.
He hung up the telephone and sat back hard, his head filling with visions of his wife in her final days. This was too painful for him, so he turned slightly and his eyes traveled down to the desktop. He noticed that the list of relatives that Rumplestiltskin had sent him was prominently placed in the center of his blotter and in a dizzying moment of doubt, Ricky did not recall leaving it in that location. He reached out slowly, pulling the sheet of paper toward him, suddenly filling with the images of the young people in the pictures that Virgil had thrust across the dinner table at him. He started to examine the names on the page, trying to connect the faces with the letters waving like heat above a highway in front of him. He tried to steel himself, knowing that he needed to make the connection, that this was important, that someone’s life might be in a balance that they knew nothing about.
As he tried to focus, he looked down.
A sensation of confusion slid through him. He started to look about, his eyes darting back and forth rapidly, as an unsettling surge quickened within him. He felt his mouth go dry and his stomach churned with sudden nausea.
He picked up notes, paper pads, and other debris from his desk, searching.
But in the same instant, he knew that what he wanted was gone.
Rumplestiltskin’s first letter, describing the parameters of the game and containing the first clue, had been removed from his desktop. The physical evidence of the threat to Ricky had disappeared. All that remained, he knew immediately, was the reality.
Chapter Thirteen
He drew another X through a day on the calendar and then wrote down two telephone numbers on a pad in front of him. The first number was for Detective Riggins of the New York City Transit Authority Police. The second was a number he had not used in years, and had his doubts that it was still functional, but it was a number he had decided to call regardless. It was for Dr. William Lewis. Twenty-five years earlier, Dr. Lewis had been his training analyst, the physician who undertook Ricky’s own analysis, while Ricky was obtaining his certificate. It is a curious facet of psychoanalysis that everyone who wants to practice the treatment must undergo the treatment. A heart surgeon would not offer up his own chest to a scalpel as part of his training, but an analyst does.
The two numbers, he thought, represented polar opposites of help. He was unsure whether either would actually be able to provide any, but despite Rumplestiltskin’s recommendation that he keep all the events to himself, he was no longer sure he could do that. He needed to talk to someone. But who? was an elusive question.
The detective answered her phone on the second ring simply by brusquely speaking her last name: “Riggins.”
“Detective, this is Doctor Frederick Starks. You will recall we spoke last week about the death of one of my patients . . .”
There was a momentary hesitation, not one defined by difficulty in recognition, but more a pause created by surprise. “Sure, doctor. I sent you over a copy of the suicide note we uncovered the other day. I thought that made things pretty clear-cut. What’s bothering you now?”
“I wonder if I might speak with you about some of the circumstances surrounding Mr. Zimmerman’s death?”
“What sort of circumstances, doctor?”
“I’d prefer not to speak on the phone.”
The detective laughed briefly, as if amused. “That sounds terribly melodramatic, doctor. But sure. You want to come here?”
“I presume there’s a location there where we can speak privately?”
“Of course. We have a nasty little interview room where we extract confessions from various criminal suspects. More or less the same thing you do in your office, just a little less civilized and a lot more rapid . . .”
Ricky flagged a cab on the corner, which he had take him north some ten blocks, dropping him at the corner of Madison and 96th Street. He walked into the first store he could see, a women’s shoe store, spent exactly ninety seconds examining the shoes, simultaneously peering through the plate glass window surreptitiously, awaiting the light on the corner to change. As soon as it did, he exited, walked across the street and flagged down another cab. He instructed this driver to head south, all the way to Grand Central Station.
Grand Central wasn’t particularly crowded for midday in the summer. A steady flow of people dispersed through the cavernous interior toward commuter trains or subway connections, avoiding the occasional singing or mumbling homeless person wandering about near the entranceways, ignoring the large vibrant advertisements that seemed to fill the station with an otherworldly light. Ricky entered the stream of people trying to hesitate as little as possible in their transit through the way station. It was a place where people tried not to show indecision, and he joined that parade of determined, directed folks, all wearing that midtown steel-and-iron look, that seemed to armor them from all the other people, so that everyone traveling was like a little emotional island all to themselves, inwardly anchored, not adrift, not floating, but moving steadily with a distinct and recognizable current. He, on the other hand, was inwardly aimless, but pretending. He took the first subway train to arrive, heading west, rode it a single stop, then bounded from the train swiftly, rising out from the stifling underground into the questionable superheated air of the street and again flagging the first cab he could spot. He made certain that the cab was pointed south, which was the opposite from where he was heading. He wanted the cabbie to make an around-the-block trip, heading down a side street, dodging through delivery trucks, all the time with Ricky peering through the rear window, watching who might come up behind him.
He thought if Rumplestiltskin or Virgil or Merlin or whoever else might be working for the man pursuing him was able to follow that path undetected, then he was without any chance whatsoever. Ricky scrunched down in the seat, and rode in silence to the Transit Authority Police substation at 96th Street and Broadway.
Riggins stood up as he walked through the door to the detective bureau. She looked significantly less exhausted than she had the first time they met, although her outfit had not changed much: fashionable dark slacks above contradictory running shoes, a man’s pale blue button-down shirt with a red tie loosely fastened around her neck. The tie flopped to the side of the brown leather shoulder harness she wore, with a small automatic pistol riding to the left of her breast. It was a most curious appearance, Ricky thought. The detective combined men’s clothing with a feminine streak, she wore m
akeup and perfume to contradict the masculinity of her apparel. Her hair fell in languid waves to her shoulders, but her running shoes spoke of urgency and immediacy.
She offered her hand in a firm shake. “Doc, glad to see you, although I must say this is a bit unexpected.” She seemed to assess his appearance rapidly, measuring up and down like a tailor inspecting a poorly conditioned gentleman who wants to squeeze into a stylish and modern suit.
“Thank you for agreeing—” he started, but she cut him off.
“You look lousy, doc. Maybe you’re taking Zimmerman’s little confrontation with a subway train a little hard.”
He shook his head, smiling a little. “Not sleeping much,” Ricky admitted.
“No shit,” Riggins replied. She gestured with a wave of her arm toward a side room, which was the interview area that she’d mentioned earlier.
The interview room was bleak and unforgiving, a narrow space devoid of any adornment, with a single metal table in the center and three steel folding chairs. A fluorescent overhead light filled the room with glare. The table had a linoleum surface, marred by scratch marks and ink stains. He thought about his own office and in particular the couch, and how each item within a patient’s view had an impact on the process of confession. He thought that this room, as barren as a moonscape, was an awful place to come to the act of explanation, but, then, he understood, the explanations that emerged in that particular place were terrible to begin with.
Riggins must have noticed the way he was assessing the room, and she said, “The city’s decorating budget is very lean this year. We had to give up all the Picassos on the walls and the Roche Bobois furniture.” She gestured at one of the steel seats. “Pull up a chair, doctor. Tell me what’s bothering you.” Detective Riggins tried to suppress a grin. “Isn’t that more or less what you would say?”
“More or less,” Ricky answered. “Although I’m at a loss as to what you find so amusing.”
Riggins nodded, losing some, but not all, of the edgy humor from her voice. “I apologize,” she said. “It’s just the role reversal, Doctor Starks. We don’t usually get prominent, uptown professional folks such as yourself in here. Transit police deal with pretty routine and ugly crimes. Muggings mostly. Gang stuff. Homeless folks get into fights that become homicides. What’s troubling you so much? And I promise to try to take it extremely seriously.”
“It amuses you to see me . . .”
“Under stress. Yes, I’ll admit it does.”
“You don’t care for psychiatry?”
“No. I had a brother who was clinically depressed and schizophrenic and in and out of every mental facility in the city and all the doctors just gabbed and gabbed his life away, never helping him in the slightest. This experience prejudiced me. Let’s leave it at that.”
Ricky paused, then said, “Well, my wife died several years ago of ovarian cancer, but I didn’t hate the oncologists who were unable to help her. I hated the disease.”
Riggins nodded again. “Touché,” she said.
Ricky was unsure where to begin, but he decided Zimmerman was as good a location as any. “I read the suicide note,” he said. “To be frank, it didn’t sound much like my patient. I wonder if you could tell me where you discovered it.”
Riggins shrugged slightly. “Sure. It was found on the pillow of his bed in his own apartment. Folded nicely and neatly and impossible to miss.”
“Who found it?”
“Actually, I did. After dealing with the witnesses and talking with you and finishing the paperwork, I went over to Zimmerman’s apartment the following day and saw it as soon as I went into his bedroom.”
“Zimmerman’s mother, she’s an invalid . . .”
“She was so distraught after getting the initial phone call, I had to send paramedics over to transfer her to a hospital for a couple of nights. I gather she’s going to be moved to an assisted-living center in Rockland County within the next day or so. The brother’s handling those arrangements. By phone from California. I gather he’s not terribly bent out of shape by all that took place and doesn’t seem to possess much of the milk of human kindness, especially where his mother is concerned.”
“Let me get this right,” Ricky said. “The mother is transported to the hospital and the following day you find the note . . .”
“Correct.”
“So you have no way of knowing when that note was placed in that room, do you? The apartment was empty for a significant amount of time?”
Detective Riggins smiled wanly. “Well, I know Zimmerman didn’t put it there sometime after three p.m. because that’s when he caught that train significantly before it slowed down, which is an altogether poor idea.”
“Someone else could have put it there.”
“Sure. If you’re the type that sees conspiracies in the woodwork. The grassy knoll approach to investigations. Doctor, he was unhappy and he jumped in front of a train. It happens.”
“That note,” Ricky started, “it was typed, right. And unsigned, except for the typed signature.”
“Yes. You’re correct about that.”
“Written on a computer, I presume.”
“Yes, again. Doctor, you’re beginning to sound like a detective.”
Ricky thought for a moment. “I seem to remember from somewhere that typewriters could be traced, that the way each struck a key against a piece of paper was distinct and recognizable. Is the same true for a computer printer?”
Riggins shook her head. “No.”
Ricky paused. “I don’t know much about computers,” he said. “Never really had the need in my line of work . . .” He stared across at the detective, who seemed to have grown slightly uncomfortable with his questions. “But don’t they internally keep a record of everything that was written on them?”
“You’re correct about that, too. On the hard drive, usually. And I see where you’re going with this. No, I did not check Zimmerman’s computer to make certain that he actually wrote the note on the computer he kept in his bedroom. Nor did I check his computer at work. A guy jumps in front of a train and I find a suicide note on his pillow at home. This scenario pretty much discourages any further inquiries.”
“That computer at work, a lot of people would have access to it, right?”
“I’m guessing he had a password to protect his files. But the short answer is yes.”
Ricky nodded, then sat silently for a moment.
Riggins shifted about in her seat, before continuing, “Now you said there were ‘circumstances’ around the death that you wanted to speak about. What are they?”
Ricky took a deep breath before replying. “A relative of a former patient has been threatening me and my family members with some unspecified harm. To this end, they have taken some steps to disrupt my life. These steps include bogus charges against my professional integrity, electronic assaults on my financial status, break-ins at my home, invasions of my personal life, and the suggestion that I take my own life. I have reason to believe that Zimmerman’s death was part of this system of harassment that I have been undergoing in the past week. I don’t believe it was a suicide.”
Riggins’s eyebrows had shot up. “Jesus, Doctor Starks. Sounds like you’re in some sort of mess. A former patient?”
“No. The child of one. I don’t know which one quite yet.”
“And you think this person who has it in for you persuaded Zimmerman to jump in front of the train?”
“Not persuaded. Perhaps he was pushed.”
“It was crowded and no one saw a push. No one whatsoever.”
“The lack of an eyewitness doesn’t preclude it happening. As the train approached, wouldn’t everyone in the station naturally have looked in the direction the subway train was traveling? If Zimmerman was at the rear of the crowd, which is suggested by the lack of precise eyewitness testimony, how hard would it have been to give him the necessary nudge or shove?”
“Well, of course, doctor, that’s correct. Not hard
. Not hard at all. And certainly the scenario that you describe is one we are familiar with. We’ve had a few killings that fit that pattern over the years. And you are also correct that people’s heads naturally go in one direction when a train approaches, allowing almost anything to happen at the rear of the platform more or less unnoticed. But here we have LuAnne who says he jumped, and even if she’s not terribly reliable, she’s something. And we have a suicide note and a depressed and angry and unhappy man in a difficult relationship with his mother, staring at a life that many would consider to be something of a disappointment . . .”
Ricky shook his head. “Now you’re the one sounding like you are making excuses. More or less what you accused me of when we first spoke.”
This comment quieted Detective Riggins. She fixed Ricky with a long stare, before continuing. “Doctor, it seems to me that you should take this story to someone who can help you.”
“And who might that be?” he asked. “You’re a police detective. I’ve told you about crimes. Or what might be crimes. Shouldn’t you make a report of some sort?”
“Do you want to make a formal complaint?”
Ricky looked hard at the policewoman. “Should I? What happens then?”
“I present it to my supervisor, who’s going to think it’s crazy, and then channel it through police bureaucracy and in a couple of days you’re going to get a call from some other detective who’s going to be even more skeptical than I am. Who have you told about these other events?”
“Well, the banking authorities and the Psychoanalytic Society . . .”
“If they determine there is criminal activity, don’t they routinely refer matters to either the FBI or state investigators? Sounds to me like you need to be talking to someone in the extortion and fraud bureaus of the NYPD. And, if it were me, I might be looking to hire a private detective. And a damn good lawyer, because you might need them.”
“How do I go about doing that? Contacting the NYPD . . . ?”
“I’ll give you a name and number.”
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