Dead East

by Steve Winshel

  McNair arrived at the Burrows home as two paramedics brought Helen out on a gurney. The ambulance was parked in the driveway. A cop car with lights flashing was on one side. An unmarked detective’s car was on the other at an angle, blocking one lane of the residential street. McNair pulled up behind it and watched the gurney. The sheet was not pulled over Helen’s face. She was alive, but even from 30 feet away McNair could see she was in bad shape. He hesitated for a moment, then got out of the car and walked toward the front door to find the cop in charge.

  Chapter Two

  McNair watched the man on the couch squirm again. The patient still hadn’t taken off his suit jacket or stiff shoes. Hands were clasped across his chest. He re-crossed his ankles for the tenth time in 45 minutes and once again halfheartedly tried to turn his head as he spoke, almost bringing the therapist into his field of vision. He didn’t like talking without being able to see his audience. He fake coughed a couple of times to cover his discomfort, using it as an excuse to move his hands around before interlacing the fingers and resting them back on the buttoned jacket.

  If the couch was at twelve o’clock, McNair sat in a stiff-backed chair at about ten. He didn’t want patients looking to him for a reaction. Didn’t want them interpreting each breath or blink. More important, he didn’t want to engage with them too closely. He could do his job from here.

  “I don’t know why she’s unhappy. It’s no different from what I told you before. I tried that crap you said.” The patient spat out “crap” but mid-word seemed to regret it. Not because he didn’t mean it, but because he didn’t want McNair to know how much he despised therapy. A dim-witted first-grader could have deduced it.

  “She just mopes around the house all day, and when I get home she’s all over me. Where was I? Why was I having an affair? All that crap.” This time he let the word sit. “I told her I wasn’t cheating, though god dammit if she doesn’t get off my ass I’m going to.” His fingers tightened and McNair could see the knuckles whiten.

  The patient was a moderately successful lawyer. His wife was much richer. She’d kick him out if caught cheating. He had no interest in being forced to work hard for a living like everyone else so an affair would be a mistake. He insisted again that his wife was nuts. She should be the one in therapy.

  McNair breathed in the air around the man. He could almost smell the lie. The patient was angry, but thought he was fooling the therapist, the secret of his infidelity safe and his future secure. He was wrong.

  “You’re having an affair. She’s going to find out. Stop seeing the woman, or women, or man, or whatever. Or plan on a divorce.” McNair sat quietly. The patient bolted upright and jumped off the couch.

  “What the hell did you say, you goddamned sonofabitch! Who the hell are you to accuse…” He shook a finger at McNair, spittle forming at the corner of his mouth and McNair moved slightly to the left. The next explosion of fury included a few flecks that missed him by a couple inches.

  “I’ll sue you, you worthless prick. Who the hell do you think you are to call me a liar?”

  McNair put his hands on his knees and leaned forward as if to stand.

  “Our hour is up. I’ll see you next week.”

  The man’s eyes widened and McNair thought there was a real probability his head would explode. The patient, finger still pointing at McNair, couldn’t think of a retort or action that would express clearly enough his desire to murder the therapist. By the time he turned and stalked through the inner door leading to the private exit, skirting the waiting room, the man’s mind was already on how he could salvage the lie to his wife.

  McNair stood and softly closed the inner door as the outer one slammed. He’d intentionally left it without a spring. Sometimes patients needed the release of whipping it into its frame, taking the edge off so they wouldn’t get in their car and rear-end some unsuspecting old lady who wasn’t driving fast enough for them. Occasionally McNair would use it for that purpose himself, when he felt like a caged animal stalking his office, hunting for a way out. The walls closing in after listening to a patient describe the ennui of life filled with marital loneliness. Sometimes it was after a court-ordered visit from a violent parolee who shared with the therapist dreams of smashing the face of a stranger on the bus for not looking away. McNair would slam the door hard, then open it and do it again. He never felt better afterward. This time he just leaned against the wall and rubbed his face with both hands. Two-day growth scratched his palms.

  McNair went behind his desk and flipped off the recording device he used so he could avoid taking notes. He sat in the worn leather chair and reached for the lower right corner of the desk where there was a false front that looked like a drawer. He pulled it open and felt a cold breeze from the tiny refrigerator. The remaining bottle had water droplets from the neck to the base that puddled in his hand as he untwisted the cap. Leaning back, he swiveled around and looked out the tinted window. The view of the San Fernando Valley from ten floors up was both comforting and disturbing. Like a crazy Rube Goldberg device with some of the parts in constant motion and the other half waiting to kick into action, but with no real purpose. He was tired. A long drink felt good but didn’t erase the exhaustion. He put the bottle to his forehead and could almost hear his pulse echo against the glass. Eyes closed, he summoned images of the night before and what little he could remember. He’d gone out after talking to the cops at Helen Burrows’ home. Under the circumstances he was no longer bound by patient confidentiality and explained her husband had been abusing her. After leaving and heading to a bar on Wilshire, the most vivid memory was of the clock reading a little past three in the morning, a clock he didn’t recognize. A woman lay on her back, hair obscuring a face he wouldn’t have known anyway.

  The phone rang and through slitted eyes he read the backwards display of the caller ID reflected in the window. A quarter of his practice came when the LAPD called. He reached around without turning his chair and hoped it would be something that gave him justification to cancel the afternoon’s appointments.

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