by T. E. Woods
“You’re down two pounds, Mindy.” Lydia flipped her chart closed. “What did you have for breakfast this morning?”
“I had a Cheerio.” Mindy’s head sagged against her bony chest. “And I chewed some gum.”
“And dinner last night?” Lydia pushed the scale back under her desk. When Mindy failed to answer with anything more than a woeful look, Lydia opened her bottom drawer and pulled out two granola bars. She tossed one to her patient and peeled the foil off her own.
Lydia took a bite and chewed while she spoke. “Tell me what’s going on.” Lydia put her feet up on the coffee table. “And you’re not going anywhere until that whole thing’s in your belly.”
Mindy turned the granola bar over and over in her hands. Finally she looked toward Lydia, shrugged her shoulders, and sat on the sofa. She peeled the foil and licked the corner of the snack.
“We’ll be here all day at this rate,” Lydia said. “Don’t you have classes this afternoon?”
Mindy took a miniscule nibble. “It’s chemistry.” She chewed the gooey bar. “I missed a step in the experiment on Friday.”
“So you made a mistake?” Lydia asked. Mindy closed her eyes and nodded. “And still the sun came up this morning?”
The thin woman’s giggle lifted Lydia’s weariness for one brief moment. “Keep eating, kiddo. I’m on the clock here.”
Lydia’s fatigue pulled on her as she moved into the afternoon. At one o’clock she asked Jim Claussen to remind her of his mistress’ name. Half-way through her two o’clock she excused herself to splash water on her face. Deshaundra Clemmons was her three o’clock and demanded to know what kind of doctor Lydia was when she asked the dosage of her antidepressant for the third time. After apologizing and explaining she hadn’t slept well, Lydia thought Deshaundra displayed incredible judgment as she stomped out of her office and said she’d have to think about re-scheduling.
Lydia leaned back in her chair, closed her eyes, and steeled herself for her four o’clock.
Savannah stumbled into the office at 4:20. She went directly to the sofa, sat down, and stared into space. She wore no make-up on her mottled and tear-stained face. A knit cap left only a few oily bangs exposed. Her orange nylon parka was marked by what Lydia hoped was a coffee stain. Her hands lay pale and motionless in her lap. A yellow hospital identification band flashed at her thin wrist.
Lydia wasted no time on pleasantries. “Tell me how you came to be wandering in the park in the middle of the night.”
Her patient sat quietly.
“You got yourself here, Savannah. You want something from me. Tell me what it is.” Lydia struggled to stay calm.
“You don’t have a clue who I am.” Savannah stared straight ahead, her voice a whisper.
Lydia ignored the challenge.
“And you don’t know what’s wrong with me, do you?”
Lydia calculated what addressing Savannah’s drama head on might cost their relationship. “Tell me what happened since the last time we met. What sent you walking in the snow and rain?”
“I want to die.” Still no movement. “I want to go back and start all over.”
Lydia was too exhausted for histrionics. “Which is it? You want to die or you want to start over?”
Savannah snapped her head around. “You don’t care much for me, do you?”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Lydia wanted to call back the words as soon as she’d said them. “Forgive me, Savannah. I’m exhausted.” She offered a smile. “I was awakened quite early this morning with an emergency call regarding one of my patients.”
“I’m sorry if I’m such a bother, Dr. Corriger.” Savannah’s eyes narrowed.
Lydia exhaled long and slow. She leaned forward. “Savannah, we can’t get anywhere with these games. I have a hunch you’re tired of them, too. Now, if you want to talk about what landed you in the emergency room last night, I’m right here. But if you’re here to play another round of “guess what I’m hiding”, well, you’re going to have to find another partner.”
Lydia watched Savannah’s pose turn from defiant to helpless.
“You’re going to have to trust someone some time,” she said. “It’s either that or stay miserable. Make a choice, Savannah.”
Savannah folded her delicate hands together. Her chest pulsed with small gasps of breath. Lydia held her own face passive as Savannah gazed at her with imploring eyes. She sat silent while Savannah stood and paced the room.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Savannah stopped next to the bookcase.
Lydia kept her voice and pose neutral. “Make a choice, Savannah. Trust me or leave.”
Savannah glanced toward the door. She walked to the window, placed her hands on the wooden cross sash and pressed her forehead to the pane. Lydia could almost hear the debate raging in her frightened patient’s mind. Minutes passed before she spoke.
“My name’s not really Savannah,” she whispered.
Lydia offered a gentle smile of encouragement. “Well, if you wanted to make up a name to hide behind, Savannah’s a pretty one.”
Savannah turned around and leaned against the window. “I guess that was what I was hoping for. Something pretty.” She risked a hesitant glance toward Lydia. “More than anyone, you should know there wasn’t much pretty in my life before I became Savannah.”
Lydia tilted her head and again felt the nagging pull she was missing something. “You’ve shared some of your foster history with me. I’d like to hear more.”
Savannah pulled herself from the window and shuffled back to her spot on the sofa. “Have I changed that much? Do you not remember me at all?”
Lydia’s throat tightened. She was certain Savannah had never been a patient of hers. Not in Olympia, not back in graduate school. She would have remembered someone as lovely and as troubled as the woman seated across from her now.
Did she know her from before? Was that the missing piece? She crossed one knee over the other and interlaced her fingers to steady her hands.
“What do you mean, Savannah? How should I remember you?”
Savannah held her gaze. Lush lashes blinked over ice-blue eyes. She inhaled long and deep before blowing out a slow breath. “I was named Greta when I was born.”
Lydia felt the air rush out of the room. The walls around her pulsed in synchrony with her pounding heart. Her ears throbbed with the freight-train roar of memory. She blinked twice and coughed her throat clear.
“Greta Ryder?”
Savannah nodded her head. A weary smile emerged behind her tears. “You remember. I can’t tell you how much that means to me.”
“My God.” Lydia willed her breathing to normalize. “You were six years old. You’d just arrived.”
Savannah wiped her hand across her cheek. “That’s right. You gave me a plastic bag filled with broken crayons and a torn coloring book my first day there. I thought it was so great that a real teenager would play with me.”
Lydia shook her head. “I was thirteen. You were hungry, I remember. Wouldn’t eat with the other kids.”
“You brought me food. A tuna sandwich and three Oreo cookies. Wrapped in a paper towel with little yellow flowers on the edges. Smuggled them into our room before lights out.”
“You were scared then, too.” Lydia allowed herself a brief smile. “I’m detecting a pattern.”
“I wasn’t scared when you were around.” Savannah’s gaze dropped to her lap.
Ethical quandaries marched through Lydia’s mind. Still, she wanted to know more about what had happened to the little girl she said goodbye to twenty-three years ago.“You stayed in the foster system til you aged out?”
Savannah nodded. “You did too. Too bad, huh? Some family lost a hell of a chance to have a daughter like you.”
Lydia cleared her throat and settled back into her chair. Savannah was no longer the vulnerable child she had tried to save. She was her patient. “How did you find me?”
“I went l
ooking for you after I left the system. A social worker told me what happened after… after that night.”
“She shouldn’t have.” Lydia felt a mixture of anger and shame. “At least we were both out of that house. You had a rough road.”
Savannah gave a short, tight nod. “I still manage to screw things up.”
Lydia wrapped her arms around herself. “Tell me how you found me.”
Savannah reached for a tissue. “Do you believe in God, Dr. Corriger?”
“Are you telling me God lent you a GPS to my door?”
“Maybe.” Savannah slipped back into her sadness and stared at the floor. “It was eight years ago. My first assignment. The very first time I ruined someone’s life for money.”
Lydia needed to keep her focused on the question; out of the quicksand of her misery. “How did you find me, Savannah?”
“My clients needed me in Philadelphia. A family was squabbling over an Old Line inheritance. Two guys wanted their half-brother cut out from their father’s estate. Lucky for them there was a morals clause in Daddy’s will.” Savannah raised an eyebrow and smirked. “They hired me to make sure the unlucky brother was caught in a most compromising situation. When I was done he had a choice. He could relinquish his claim or the state’s three largest newspapers would receive photographs of him in bed with me and a particularly cute sailor-boy home on leave.” Savannah leveled a look at Lydia. “Did I mention Brother Unlucky was a prominent prosecuting attorney with a wife, two children, and gubernatorial aspirations?”
“I’m still not hearing how you found me.” Lydia had no immediate interest in the details of Savannah’s job.
Savannah rubbed the back of her neck. “The day I was leaving Philadelphia I treated myself to a pedicure in the hotel spa. I took along a cup of tea and the local paper. There was an article on University of Pennsylvania’s latest graduates with a photograph of you accepting some big award. A brand-spanking new clinical psychologist.” She wiped away another tear. “Your name was different, but I knew it was you. I still have that article.”
Lydia silently scolded herself. A simple photograph allowed her past to find her.
“I’ve wanted to contact you for so long. To thank you for what you did for me,” Savannah said. “But I wasn’t proud of who I’d become. And you’re such a success.”
Lydia wondered what else Savannah knew. “Then why now? By the way, would you prefer I call you Savannah or Greta?”
“I’m Savannah, Dr. Corriger. Greta’s long gone.” The steely cold of Savannah’s defenses had returned. “And I’m here now because I want this all to stop. I want you to save me one more time.”
“Save you from what? No more games, okay?” Lydia waited several long minutes in silence as Savannah got up, crossed back to the window, and considered her next move.
“Did you read about that murder, Dr. Corriger?” Savannah stared into the gloom of the damp afternoon. “That guy from the university?”
“Are you talking about that Bastian fellow again?” She chose her words carefully. “We discussed this, remember? The papers said he died of a heart attack.”
Savannah turned her back to the window and leaned her hips against the wide sill. “Not Bastian.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I’m talking about the other one. The guy who was shot.”
Lydia’s exhaustion disappeared. Her brain snapped to full attention as she swiveled her chair to face Savannah. The murder of Walter Buchner was the lead story on every local news outlet. He was a research assistant at the university. The reporters titillated their audience with descriptions of a gunshot wound to his face.
“I know about it, yes.” Lydia could hear her blood pulsing in her ears. “Why does this death interest you, Savannah?” Lydia’s clinical training taught her that reality wasn’t as important as the patient’s interpretation of it. But Savannah was now more than merely a patient and Lydia needed the truth.
Savannah opened her mouth, but no words came.
“What do you want to say to me, Savannah?” Lydia’s breath accelerated as a rapid replay of her past sessions with the enigmatic beauty flashed through her mind, juxtaposed next to the memory of a small child crying out for help more than two decades earlier. She struggled against the question that screamed in her brain. Every cell in her being wanted to ask if she killed Walter Buchner.
Savannah drew in a loud gasp of air. A sob broke from her throat. She swiped tears away with shaking hands. “You can’t help me, can you?
Nobody can save me this time.” She reached for her coat.
Lydia stood and stepped toward her. “No, Savannah. Please stay.”
“I have to go, Dr. Corriger.” She shoved her hands into her jacket pocket and took three wide steps. “I’ve done too much. I’ve hurt too many people. I don’t deserve saving.”
“Will you come back?” Lydia struggled with her own sense of helplessness. “Please, Savannah. Promise me you’ll come back.”
Lydia stood motionless as her patient ran out into the cold without answering her.
Chapter Eighteen
Mort watched the snow falling outside his office window and wondered what the hell was going on with the weather. He’d lived in the Pacific Northwest his entire life. Fifty-eight winters. He’d seen snow maybe ten times. Enough to snarl traffic for an hour or two, then it was gone. In these parts snow stayed on the mountains where it belonged.
Not this winter. Nine inches of snow crippled western Washington a few days before Christmas and most of it was still on the ground. Minor storms followed, adding another foot. Now, late into January, it was snowing again. Mort mumbled a curse, turned back to his desk, and reached for the case file.
He’d picked up the murder eight days ago. Walter Buchner. Lab assistant at the university. Gunshot to the face. Stabbed in the chest post-mortem. Twenty-nine years old. The same age as Meaghan Hane, the cellist Angelo Satanell, Jr shoved behind the dumpster after she overdosed on his heroin. The same age as Allie. Mort pushed the coincidence out of his mind and set his attention on the ticking clock. Eight days of interviews had gotten him nowhere. Mort looked out at the snow again. The trilling of his desk phone startled him back to reality.
“Got time to meet a lady?” It was Daphne from main reception. “Says she doesn’t have an appointment. Says it’s about a murder you’re working on.”
Mort reached for a pen. “She got a name? Herself or the victim. Either will do.” Mort heard Daphne repeat his questions and shook his head. Daphne was easy on the eyes but would never be confused with someone able to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without a recipe. Speculation as to how she got her job kept the squad room guessing for nearly a year. How she keeps it was still a matter of conjecture.
“Says her name is Lydia Corriger.” Daphne’s voice was like a six-year old on helium. “Says she’s a doctor from down in Olympia. Says it’s about Walter Buchner. You want me to send her up?”
Mort looked at the whiteboard dedicated to the Buchner homicide mounted on the wall behind him. By this point it should have listed an arrest, but a dozen interviews turned up zero. Buchner’s landlady only seemed interested in who was going to pay for the days the crime scene was locked down. His parents had flown back from a month-long trip to Australia and were too stunned to be of any help. Buchner’s co-workers offered no more than he was a nice guy who loved dogs, kept to himself and was focused on his job. Eight days of nothing.
“Show her to an interview room, okay, Daphne? I’ll be right down. Get her some coffee, would you?”
“I’ll put her in room six, Mort.” Daphne shifted to a whisper. “But I’m not allowed to get coffee anymore. Remember?”
Mort recalled the incident with the assistant chief. He remembered being impressed that the EMTs got to him so quickly.
“That’s okay, Daphne. Put her in six and I’ll bring the refreshments.”
Mort offered his hand as he entered the windowless room. “Mort Grant, Homicide. Can I get you so
mething? We have bad coffee or tap water.”
“I’m fine, Detective.” She handed him her card. “Thank you for meeting with me.”
Mort read the card before turning his attention to the woman. He pegged her as five-seven, one-twenty. Mid-thirties. No make-up. Mousy hair pulled up in a clip. Trying hard to look plain. Typical granola-eating, tree-hugging bookish type from Olympia.
He pulled out a chair for his guest and circled to take an opposite seat. “A psychologist, huh? Chief call for an intervention?” He smiled and tossed his notebook on the green formica table separating them. “Daphne said you had some information on the Buchner murder.”
She shook her head. “She must have misunderstood. I’d like to talk about the case, if you don’t mind.”
Mort pulled his pen from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “Daphne’s prone to misunderstandings, Dr. Corriger. What’s your interest?” He clicked his pen and poised it over his notebook, never taking his eyes off his unexpected visitor in the dated red plaid overcoat.
“I’m wondering if you have any leads. What you’re thinking,” she said.
“Do you have information you feel might be helpful?”
“That’s what I was hoping you’d share with me, Detective.”
He clicked his pen closed and laid it on the table. “You ever been in a police station, Dr. Corriger?”
Lydia shook her head.
“Ever participate in a murder investigation?”
She shook her head again.
“You watch television? Cop shows? Read true crime books? Anything like that?”
Lydia pulled herself taller in the seat and her brown eyes turn stern. “What’s your point, Detective?”