by Diane Lawson
“The kids,” I said. “It’s because of the kids.”
The truth was I didn’t know why I didn’t divorce Richard. Or I wouldn’t let myself know why I didn’t divorce Richard. I didn’t divorce him because I wanted things to stay just like they were except for him to be out of the picture. Just like a spoiled kid. I wanted everything my way for once in my life. I didn’t want to be like my patients. To let depression win out. To blow myself up like Howard Westerman or take a desperate leap like Allison Forsyth. I didn’t want to turn to perversion like John Heyderman. Or spend my days in a nightmare like Lance Powers. Or live in LaLaLand like Yvette Cunningham. Or be greedy and hateful like Renee Buchanan. Or be a lonely hermit like Morrie Viner. I just wanted some happiness and some peace.
“For the kids,” he said. “You’re so full of shit.”
“What difference does it make to you?”
“My occupation is hazardous enough without a maniac of a client’s husband having it in for me.”
“Client,” I said. “There’s that term again.”
“Yeah. Client. At least until this thing is put away. Client.”
“Do you get blow jobs from all your clients?”
“No,” he said. “Not all of them.”
I put down my own window and let the wind blow on my face. I closed my eyes, trying to make the rush of the air heating up now in the late morning, the mock outrage of the AM commentator going off on bleeding-heart liberals, and the noise of the poorly muffled traffic fill my head. It was a technique I’d perfected as a teenager to block out the fights between my parents.
“Hey,” Mike said, leaning toward me and sliding his hand up my long broomstick skirt to my bare knee. “Yours was one of the best I’ve had.”
Chapter Thirty-One
I dropped the kids at day camp on Monday, June 22nd. It was three weeks since Howard’s death, two weeks for Allison, and John had been gone for one. I was trip-wired for what seemed like the inevitable next blow. For some release, I set to pulling weeds from the flowerbeds before taking off on my morning walk, particularly going at the nut grass. Richard always said pulling nut grass made it multiply. The hopelessness of the task gave me a special fervor. It was just after eight o’clock, already hot and humid, and a hoard of butterflies was swarming over my yellow lantana. That time of day, every minute of weeding guaranteed my walk would be just that much more sweaty miserable, but I couldn’t bring myself to stop. I was scolding myself over my weak will when the squad car pulled up.
The female officer approached me with deliberate steps, eyes riveted, watching for one false move. “Doctor Goodman?” she said. “I’m Officer Perkins. We have a situation.”
She stood a careful five feet away, tense-fingered hands a few inches from her sides.
“Situation?” I said, dusting myself off.
“Patient of yours. We could use your help, ma’am.” She put one hand on the small of my back, took my elbow with the other and guided me into the car with the firm grace of a ballroom dancer.
She slid us through rush-hour traffic up San Pedro, through swirls of butterflies that dirtied the windshield. Occasionally, she’d put out little hiccups of siren, scaring sleepy motorists who looked up to see the red flash of accusing lights in the rearview.
“Is this some migratory thing?” I asked. “These butterflies all over the place?”
“Don’t have that information, ma’am.”
We passed North Star Mall and were merging onto Loop 410 before I got up the nerve to ask my other question, the obvious question with the answer I already knew.
“Which of my patients are we talking about?”
“You’ll get briefed when we get there, ma’am.”
Don’t call me ma’am. I’m not much older than you. I always hear condescension in the ma’am stuff. Richard says I’m paranoid, that in Texas it’s a sign of respect. I tell him he’s in denial about the hostility under the sugarcoated niceness here on the frontier.
“Sounds great,” I said to the officer.
An epic cast of police surrounded Lance’s suburban home—four Castle Hills’ squads, an equal number from the SAPD, and, of course, the SWAT team. Most of the officers were busy keeping inquisitive neighbors and pushy press at bay.
“This suspect has a small arsenal with him, including a high-powered rifle. Ya’ll would be better off inside,” a cop explained to a family with three kids jockeying for a better view. They didn’t budge.
Lance had only recently told me about his home. It was a rambling one-story place, built in the seventies like the others surrounding it—a ranch-style gone elegant, done in a dove-gray stone, considerably nicer than I’d imagined. A-framed areas revealed cathedral ceilings, concealed patios extended off the bedrooms and a yard full of live oaks made for a living sculpture park. It wasn’t my taste, but I appreciated the sense of sanctuary it created, a sanctuary now under siege.
Officer Perkins deposited me behind a squad car with an order to keep my head down. Mike was there, red-eyed from lack of sleep and stubble-faced. He put a heavy arm around my shoulders. He smelled of fear. He told me he’d been there all night, watching Lance’s place from his car in a cooperative neighbor’s driveway. Neither he nor the undercover detective team that he just learned had joined him about midnight saw Lance take his post. Instead it was an early-rising neighbor, bending over to pick up his newspaper, who caught a reflection off the polished combat boot. Lance was still up there, straddling a branch in a fork of the huge tree, outfitted in full camouflage gear.
“The negotiators want to talk to you about Powers,” Mike said. “Tell them what they need to know. He’s shot at something every time they’ve tried to engage him.” He pointed to a satellite dish that had taken a dead-center hit and a severed phone line. “He can take out whatever he pleases.”
“Does he have a hostage?”
“No hostage. Neighbors say he sent the wife and kids to their place in Rockport.”
I heard a familiar voice over my shoulder and turned to see George Slaughter talking to a guy holding a bullhorn. “Just keep trying to establish contact. Don’t try to convince him of anything right away.” Slaughter’s orange crew-cut stood out atop a blood-drained face.
I walked over to him. “I know him,” I said. “Why don’t you let me try?”
“Mr. Powers,” a voice echoed through the bullhorn. A single shot pruned a small branch off the top of the blooming magnolia behind us and the butterflies that had been resting in its confines took off in circling swarms. “Mr. Powers, please.” A metal chimney cap went flying. Mike and I ducked back behind the squad. Three of the butterflies set down by our faces, wings pumping up and down, white undersides alternating with brown and orange tops.
“What’s with the butterflies?” I said to Mike.
“The drought. Don’t you read the paper?”
The man with the bullhorn resumed: “Mr. Powers, we’re trying to contact your family.”
A purple martin house took two hits. Dark birds flew out in squawking loops, bigger spots in the dotted cloud of restless butterflies.
“They’re looking for water? All these…what are they?”
“American Snouts. Look at their noses. They’re not thirsty. They’re crawling all over the place because the drought’s killed their predator, some sort of wasp that keeps them in check.”
“It’s so sad.”
“Shit, Nora. The world’s a sad place. This isn’t the time to worry about bugs. Look. I got to talk to Slaughter. Stay here and keep your head down.” And then he took my chin between his thumb and his index finger and kissed me. “I’m sure I taste foul. Sorry. Just stay here. Okay?”
He was right on all counts. His mouth was convenience store coffee and too many cigarettes. The world qualifies as a sad place. And this was indeed no time to be concerned about the fate of however many millions of Lepidoptera and their enemy wasps given the human tragedy unfolding there. But in situations too big for the min
d to manage, your wits are hostage to the most ridiculous worries. Like noticing the chips in the red polish on your mother’s toenails as she sits in the armchair, looking on as your father, high on alcohol, adrenalin and lack of sleep, flails the daylights out of you for the omission in your recitation of the Ve’ahavta: Set these words. Whack. Which I command you this day. Whack. Upon your heart. Whack. Teach them faithfully to your children. And you’re almost pulling your arm out of its socket, not to escape him, because he’d just chase you down and go at you harder, but to get a better look at your mother’s feet. Didn’t she just paint those toes two days ago? Probably that cheap polish. That’s the kind of thing that goes on in your mind.
“He’s escalating,” I heard a man say.
“Maybe the wife can reach him. If we can find her in time,” another said.
“They’re going to end up taking him out.” It sounded like Slaughter’s voice.
I straightened up enough to take in the scene. It was indeed Slaughter who had made the dire prediction. He and Mike were huddled with the negotiation team. No one looked my way. Don’t do it, I said to myself. Don’t. But my feet started moving. Stop now. I rounded the back of the squad car crouching and got halfway across the street before anyone noticed. I put my head up then, my shoulders back. I took one step at a time, pulled toward Lance like the opposite pole of a magnet, an intensification of the eerie connection I’d felt to him the moment we met. Once I’d wheedled his traumatic past out of him, I knew that his darkness was the draw. Curiosity, I’d assumed. My fascination with the vicarious experience of something I’d imagined I’d be far too much a coward to do.
The cops would have been furious when they saw what I was up to. They would have called to me to stop, to get back behind the car. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Slaughter, given his grim mood, suggested taking both of us out. But I heard nothing. I was focused on Lance’s dream, the reliving part of it, thinking that somehow it held the key to stopping the madness. I’ve come to realize that my grandiosity was fueling my mission. The conviction I had that I could fix the situation was completely unwarranted. I now know that this dangerous over-estimation of myself comes straight from being the terrified child of a crazy father, from being the exploited child of a narcissistic mother. And that it is this very same aspect of my character that compels me to be the healer of sick minds.
But all I was aware of then, as I put one foot in front of the other, was that we were all—including me—enemy to Lance in that moment. I understood his paranoia in the most primitive part of my brain. And I believed, without benefit of conscious assessment of my belief, that if I could somehow become his combat buddy Jake in his mind, I could save him. I see now that making myself vulnerable was a move in that direction, but I didn’t think that at the time.
I was operating on instinct.
I want to be clear about that.
“Hey, man,” I tried to say. There was no spit in my mouth. “Hey, man,” I started again. “We need to get out of here. We’re done.”
I walked as I said this, following the sparkle of the morning sun off Lance’s black combat boot, kept going until I saw the circle at the end of the long gun barrel, my eyes following the steel path up to his, the coldest eyes I’d ever seen, the eyes he kept hidden from me behind those sunglasses during his most tortured times. I felt grateful to him then for that consideration.
“It’s okay,” I said. “We need to clear out.”
I forced myself to hold his gaze like I’d learned to do in our sessions, though the angle made my neck hurt. I’ve no idea how long I stood there, floating in some trance-like state, paralyzed prey to cobra eyes, waking only when the rifle hit the ground, butt first, at my feet. The gun balanced for a moment, then pivoted slightly and fell over.
I looked back at Lance.
“It’s only a dream, Doc,” he said before he put the pistol to his temple and blew away half his head.
For an instant, the tree came alive with thousands of butterflies revving for flight. Then, like a hailstorm, bits of brain and skull pelted me, settling in my hair, sticking to my skin. Lance sat for a moment tilted to the left from the force of the impact. Then his body leaned, making a slow arc. At one hundred and twenty degrees, he dropped, his boot catching in the fork of the tree. He swung there, his empty head level with my face.
The frenzied butterflies took off and the cops joined forces, swarming around, shouting orders. Mike peeled out of the crowd and wrapped himself around me.
“I’d forgotten,” I said in his ear, “that the inside of a skull is so white.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Slaughter was not kind. He took me straight to the station, refusing me a chance to clean up. He left me alone in an interrogation room the remainder of the morning and half the afternoon with bits of Lance’s brains drying on my skin and exercise clothes. It was cold as hell in there but, even then, I started to stink.
The officer in charge granted me permission to use my cell phone—which I’d fortuitously stuck in the pocket of my running shorts—to cancel my afternoon appointments.
I got Yvette’s voice mail. Her cheery greeting evoked such a sorrowful heaviness in me that I was incapable of leaving a message. She was still in Paris anyway.
I called Renee.
“I turned down a meeting with a hot prospect today because I had an appointment with you,” she said.
“I’m sorry. I’ve had an emergency.”
“If I tried that line, you’d charge me and say I didn’t take my analysis seriously. Where’s the justice in this?”
“I’m sorry for your inconvenience.” Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I’m stuck here guarded by a moron with a loaded gun, covered with my patient’s brains and freezing my ass off. Where’s the justice in that, Renee? “I’m very sorry. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I called Morrie.
“An emergency? Why didn’t you warn me? Should I call Dr. Richard Kleinberg?” I heard him counting softly in the crack between his sentences.
“No, Morrie. You don’t need to call Dr. Kleinberg.” Whatever you do, don’t call Dr. Richard Kleinberg. “I’ll see you at the regular time tomorrow.”
“No. Tomorrow I see Dr. Kleinberg.”
“That’s right. I’ll see you Wednesday.”
I called Richard myself. For once, he just agreed when I asked him to pick up the kids and keep them overnight.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. Something is very, very wrong.
There was a long pause and then he said, “It’s about your patient. I heard.”
“I’m with the police.” They won’t let me go. I didn’t do anything.
“Can I help?”
Tell Slaughter to release me. Call one of your judges. You play golf with the D. A. Get me out of here. “Just pick up the kids. Tell them I’m okay.”
“I’m sorry, Nora,” he said. “About your patient, I mean.”
“Me too,” I said.
“Just what did you think you were doing?” Slaughter started off when he finally came in.
“I thought I could talk to him,” I said.
“You talked to him so good that he blew his brains out.”
“Don’t you think I feel bad enough already?”
“No. Actually, I don’t. I’m not at all sure that you get how serious this is. But right now we’re not going to talk about you. Right now you’re going to tell me everything you know about the recently deceased.”
Slaughter lived up to his word. He questioned me with a vengeance, taking excruciating notes in a tiny script, even though there was a tape recorder purring between us. He even wanted to know about Lance’s masturbation fantasies and favorite sexual position.
“He never talked about sex,” I said, telling the truth.
“Isn’t that all you shrinks care about?”
“If I’d understood his sexuality, he wouldn’t have killed himself. Is that your theory? Sue me for malp
ractice.”
“Doctor, you don’t want me for an enemy.”
“I know,” I said. “I’m just worn out.”
“You think I got a nap today?”
“No,” I said. Sorry to you too. I don’t think. I just don’t think things through. That seems to be the problem.
When he’d had enough, Slaughter rubbed his hand back and forth over his flaming buzz and said, “I haven’t figured out what I can charge you with yet. What you did was so damned stupid that it never occurred to anyone to pass a law against it. But I’m not done figuring. I’ll have you on something.”
“I haven’t done anything,” I said, although it was not what I felt. “Someone is assassinating my patients. What else will it take to convince you?”
Slaughter smiled and shut off the tape recorder. “So far, you’re the only one whose fingerprints have been found at every scene. Speaking metaphorically, of course. I don’t know what you did or didn’t do with the first two. Now, thanks to your professional skills, Powers is beyond giving testimony. The jury is out on Heyderman. He’ll show up sometime. Somehow. It’ll look a hell of a lot better for you if he shows up soon and alive.”
“Am I free to leave?” I asked, fearing what might be said if I stayed. Fearing unjustified accusation. Fearing unwarranted confession.
Slaughter stood and opened the door, holding it for me like a gentleman. As I passed, he inclined his head to mine.
“Rest assured, Doctor Goodman,” he whispered. “I’m going to nail your ass.”
It was late evening by the time Mike and I got back to my house. He took me to the laundry room and stripped off my tee shirt, my jog bra, my shorts. “Best to burn these,” he said, dropping everything onto the floor.
He wrapped a towel around me and led me upstairs. I wasn’t cold, but I couldn’t stop shivering. He kept a hand on me while he started the shower. When the water was warm, he put me in and shut the door. I remember the water sheeting down my face like the tears that wouldn’t come. Then Mike was with me. He turned up the water temperature and took the bar of soap in his hand. He washed me, and the water ran pink with the splatter of Lance’s blood. He scrubbed my nails with a brush, not because my nails were dirty, but because he knew how dirty I felt. He washed my hair.