A Fatal Debt

by John Gapper

  “I wasn’t acting normally, you know that. Those pills you gave me affected me. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was crazy.”

  I was shocked by how blatantly he’d just blamed it all on me. He didn’t look ashamed at having fooled me or for having forced me to release him. It was all my fault, was it-nothing to do with him? I felt like reaching across the Perspex screen and shaking him, but his corrections officer loomed nearby.

  “But you feel better now,” I said, not bothering to hide my skepticism.

  “Much better.”

  He leaned back, and I knew that was it. I wasn’t going to get any more out of him. The truth was that I’d never known what was going on in his head, not from the first moment I’d seen him. I’d been blind right from the start. A knot of officers by the cage called time and started to beckon the inmates out row by row.

  Harry thrust out his hand. “I don’t know if I’ll see you again, Doctor.”

  “I don’t know either.” I took it, feeling his hard, decisive grip.

  “Thanks for your help.”

  “I don’t think I helped, Mr. Shapiro.”

  “Oh, you did,” he said, smiling slightly as he turned away.

  When I reached the parking lot, a man and a woman in their forties were waiting by a black sedan. He was ruddy-faced, with plush cheeks, thick shoulders, and a belly that bulged over his belt-a high school football player gone soft. His partner was in better shape: her neck muscles were taut, as if she worked out. Her hair was curly and her face olive-skinned-Greek or Italian, I guessed.

  “Dr. Cowper?” she said, halting me as I got to my car and pulled out the key. They had parked next to me-they’d known which one it was.

  “Cooper, yes.”

  “Okay,” she said in an unruffled tone. “I’m Detective Pagonis and this is Detective Hodge. We’re with Suffolk County homicide. We heard you were here, thought we’d take a drive over. We’d like to ask you a couple of things. You’re Shapiro’s shrink, aren’t you?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Hodge grimaced but didn’t say anything. Pagonis seemed to be in charge.

  “Hey, come on, Doctor. You’ve just been to visit him, haven’t you? That’s what he told us, anyways. It’s all in his statement.”

  She reached through her passenger-side window and pulled a sheaf of papers from under the windshield. It was a photocopy of a long document written neatly by hand and signed by Harry on the last page. Pagonis pointed to a passage halfway through.

  I received psychiatric treatment at Episcopal hospital from Dr. Ben Cowper. Dr. Cowper was responsible for admitting me to a psychiatric ward and then discharging me on Monday, April 27.

  Pagonis pulled the papers away.

  “I see,” I said, trying to look unimpressed. “How can I help?”

  “Just a few questions at Yaphank. It’s not far-on the way back to the city. Won’t take long. You’re not under arrest.”

  I hadn’t considered that possibility until she mentioned it, but the sight of my name inscribed on Harry’s confession made me realize it wasn’t out of the question. Things were starting to crumble around me, and I couldn’t think of any excuse to disobey her.

  “You understand I can’t answer any questions about my treatment of Mr. Shapiro. I have a duty of confidentiality.”

  “For now,” she said dismissively. “We’ll take the expressway. You can follow us.” She climbed into the passenger seat while Hodge took the wheel.

  We turned off the expressway twenty minutes later on a flat road with low buildings on either side. I was concentrating on keeping a safe distance from the back of their car, but I looked up at the surroundings as they turned right into a lot with a two-story building marked SUFFOLK COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT. The Stars and Stripes hung by the entrance, and I saw cops walking through a reception area lit in sodium yellow. I prepared to halt, but Hodge kept going round the side of the building, passing ranks of cars, and parked close to the rear.

  “We can go in this way. It’s easier for our offices,” Pagonis said, leading me to a metal freight door at the back of the building.

  It was isolated, with no one in sight, and I felt even more like a suspect. Hodge pressed a red button by the door and I could hear the elevator creak into life somewhere inside. He pulled the door open with a screech and we stepped into the metal box, which deposited us at the second floor on a hallway with a biblical commandment written on the wall in large letters: THOU SHALT NOT KILL. I wondered which bright spark had adopted it as the squad’s motto: if everyone obeyed, they’d be out of business.

  Why did I agree to this? I thought to myself as Pagonis led me down a hallway and into a narrow room, maybe nine by thirteen, with just one desk, a couple of chairs, and a floor-to-ceiling mirrored wall on one side. An interview room, I knew from a hundred cop shows, and I looked for the voice recorder but there wasn’t one.

  “Have a seat,” Pagonis said, unbuckling her gun belt from around her waist and passing it to Hodge. “Coffee? Milk, sugar?”

  I sat in the seat she’d indicated and, looking down, saw a three-foot chain bolted to the floor under my feet. There was a pair of handcuffs attached to one end, and I realized they were shackles. Christ, I thought. Did they chain Harry when they brought him to this place? Hodge reentered with two paper cups of coffee and sat down silently by Pagonis’s side, giving me a glare of suspicion. Her face was lined with exhaustion, but adrenaline was keeping her going-it had to be the biggest case of her career.

  “We’re investigating the death of Marcus Greene,” she said, stirring sugar into her brew. “We aren’t called out to East Hampton much. The village police deal with most things there-tennis permits, break-ins, that stuff. We don’t get a lot of business, so this is a change all right. Shapiro probably told you what happened.”

  “As I said, I can’t discuss that.”

  “Sure, sure. Listen, Mike, why don’t you get the photos? Dr. Cowper’s a professional, right? He’ll want to know what his patient did.”

  No, I won’t, I thought, but there was nothing to do but wait as Hodge heaved himself to his feet again and wandered out of the room in search of the evidence. Pagonis gazed at me with superficial friendliness, as if all of us were in this together. A couple of minutes later, he walked back into the room, spilling half a dozen photos on the desk.

  “Messy, eh?” Pagonis said, looking at me.

  Reluctantly, I picked up one of the images and looked at it. I recognized the Shapiros’ living room right away. The shot was taken from roughly where I’d sat talking to Nora. Had it been only two weeks ago? It felt as if it had been forever. The sofa on which she’d sat was in the background, with their conservatory behind. In front was the gray-and-black wool rug, on which a man’s body rested, with his left arm splayed out to one side. The right one was clasped over his chest, as if in a useless effort to stop up the wound that had killed him. I could see a small entry mark in his chest on the left-hand side, a few inches above the heart. Behind his back, blood had flooded out, encrusting a wide pool of dark red soaking into the rug. It looked as if the bullet had taken out an artery on the way through. If his death hadn’t been immediate, it must have come within minutes.

  “This is him,” Pagonis said, handing me another photo.

  I’d seen Greene’s face in newspaper photos since the killing, and I recognized it inert on the rug, photographed from above. His face was white and his eyes stared out unseeingly. His upper lip was twisted in a rictus, as if frozen as he forced out his last words-he looked both scornful and desperate. His head rested in the pool of blood, to which a few strands of his graying hair were glued. I was used to seeing the faces of the dead in Episcopal, but this was different, more personal, as if it were a relative of mine whose last agony had been preserved there. I felt saliva drip inside my mouth and tried to control my nausea.

  “What do you think of your patient’s handiwork?” she asked. Your patient. Your fault. Pagonis wasn’t sub
tle. “Shapiro had a nine-millimeter. Not a bad shot. He must have been a few yards away. There’s no powder on the clothes. He fired twice, but we haven’t found the other bullet. Must have missed once and got him the second time. Here, look.”

  She pushed the photo toward me and tapped it, as if I hadn’t seen enough the first time. I reluctantly examined Greene’s face again. Those cold, staring eyes told me the error I’d made-I’d caused this man to die in agony.

  “We’ll show you the weapon,” Pagonis said relentlessly. “Mike?”

  Hodge lumbered to his feet again and she gave me the same thin, hard smile as we awaited his return. I stared at her blankly, but inside my mind was in turmoil. I thought of the gun I’d held in the ER when Nora had handed it to me-a Beretta Cheetah, I remembered Pete O’Meara telling me. My fingerprints must be on it, I thought. That’s why Pagonis has got me here. I knew there must be more to it than just Harry’s statement. They know everything that happened-the signs that I ignored.

  Minutes passed as we waited for Hodge. Pagonis looked as if she could sense my discomfort and was gratified by it. I heard his footsteps in the corridor and saw a familiar shape grasped in his right hand as he walked over to us, a gun held securely in a plastic evidence bag to prevent contamination.

  “There we are,” she said as Hodge placed it on the table. “A Glock. Shapiro’s fingerprints were all over it and powder on his hands.”

  I didn’t say anything, just reached forward and pulled it toward me. It wasn’t the same gun. It was a similar shape, but it looked a little bigger and it was dull gray with a square barrel, like those the New York police carry. Thank God, I thought. I’d misjudged Nora after all. She’d kept the gun safe, as I’d told her to do. Then I thought of Harry. I wondered how he’d got hold of this gun. Nora hadn’t mentioned another weapon, so where had it come from?

  “You’re a shrink at Episcopal?” Pagonis said.

  “An attending psychiatrist, yes.”

  “Shapiro says you admitted him to the hospital, right?”

  “I can’t tell you, I’m afraid.”

  “Did you think he was dangerous?”

  “Again, it’s privileged.”

  “But you let him out again,” Hodge said, his eyes flat.

  I wondered if he distrusted all psychs or if he felt a particular enmity for me. Probably the first: most cops thought our job was to concoct bullshit excuses for criminals.

  “I’ve told you that I’m unable to discuss this,” I said with an edge. “There are strict laws on patient confidentiality in New York State.”

  “What you did was very convenient,” Pagonis said, ignoring me. “You take him into the hospital, establish he’s not right in the head, then let him out. A couple of days later, he goes on the run and pulls this gun on Greene. Then he calls up his wife back in New York and tells her. Next up, he calls the East Hampton police to hand himself in. We’ve got a record of both those calls. It looks nicely planned to me, not at all crazy, but you gave the guy the perfect defense.”

  Her voice was laden with cynicism, and I couldn’t say I blamed her. Harry had tried his excuse about my treatment absolving him of responsibility on me in Riverhead. I’d reacted the same way as Pagonis.

  “Detective,” I said, “I can’t help you.”

  Pagonis treated me to a long, cool look before getting up from her chair. “All right, we’ll talk again. Here’s my card,” she said, handing me one. “Call me if you change your mind. Mike will show you out.”

  Back at ground level, Hodge pulled aside the metal elevator door and watched me as I walked back to my car. My fingers were shaking as I tried to put the key in the ignition, and I managed it only at the third attempt.

  10

  Duncan’s assistants were buried in their work when I obeyed her summons to her office two days later, as if they’d been stuck in that position since I’d last seen them. The clicking of keyboards was interrupted briefly by one of them opening a can of Coke Zero with a hiss while the other waved me to a chair to wait.

  My feelings about her, never warm, had worsened since Greene’s death. If she hadn’t interfered, if she’d left me to treat Harry, I could have averted this disaster. I’d have kept him in York East until the drugs had started to work and he was less dangerous. He’d fooled me about the person he’d intended to kill-I’d believed it was himself and not Greene-but I’d known he was dangerous and we ought not to risk freeing him in that condition. Although I was angry at the way he’d blamed the whole thing on the drugs and his condition, it would carry weight with a judge. He’d been my patient and I hadn’t done my duty.

  After my ten-minute quarantine was up, Duncan once again peered around the door and ushered me into her room.

  “Well,” she said, offering me a tight grimace as she stood and looked at me, “this is a mess, isn’t it?”

  Her expression was a cocktail-one measure of sympathy to three measures of iron determination that if anyone at Episcopal ended up suffering as a result of Greene’s death, it wouldn’t be her.

  “It’s very unfortunate. I-”

  “I’ve had a call from the insurers,” she said, cutting me off and walking to a window. “They’re expecting a lawsuit, of course. There’s always one of those.”

  I tensed for the worst. “Who’s going to sue?”

  “The victim’s family. Maybe the Shapiros. Wrongful death, malpractice. There’s a range of possibilities.” She paused briefly. “This has been very upsetting. Nora is my friend and I can only imagine what she’s suffering, but I must put my own feelings aside.”

  I didn’t imagine she’d find that too difficult-they would fit comfortably into a small box. Anyway, what about my feelings? I thought. She didn’t seem bothered about them. She strode back and sat opposite me on the sofa.

  “You’ll get your own lawyer-our insurer will pay for it. They’re not expecting a civil suit until the criminal case is settled, but you’ll need to be prepared. Have you been through this kind of thing before?”

  “Nothing like this.”

  A couple of patients had launched halfhearted malpractice suits against me-those were impossible to avoid in New York-but they had not bothered me too much. The cases were weak and the hospital’s lawyer had hardly broken a sweat as he’d swatted them away. They’d mainly been legal therapy for troubled souls.

  “There is one question I must ask,” she said. “Did Mr. Shapiro give any indication of homicidal intent? I’ve looked over the notes, but there’s not much there.”

  That could have been a neutral observation, but she managed to make it sound like an allegation of professional misconduct.

  “I admitted him because I believed he was a danger to self,” I said carefully. “That was why Mrs. Shapiro brought him to the hospital, as you know. There were no indications that he was a danger to others.”

  “That’s good. I’m sorry to ask, but I must be clear. There are some aspects of the case that I don’t feel fully informed about.” She reached forward to brush a piece of fluff from her skirt. “Nonetheless, I want you to know we’re right behind you. You’ve got our full support.”

  I didn’t like the turn the conversation was taking. What was this about me needing to be prepared and Episcopal being behind me? Surely it should be right beside me, or out in front, given her involvement. I decided I couldn’t simply sit there passively and allow her to evade responsibility.

  “I hope this case won’t affect the hospital too much. You mentioned that Mrs. Shapiro was considering making a large donation to the hospital. To build the new cancer wing, you said.”

  My reminder of how she had pushed me into obeying Harry made her blink a couple of times, like a computer pausing to absorb data. She regarded me impassively, as if from a long distance.

  “I don’t recall that,” she said.

  The brazenness of the lie shocked me-she didn’t appear at all embarrassed by it. It was as if she’d managed to rewrite the past so quickly and so neatly
in her mind that there was no memory left. Professionally, I would have called it adaptive, the ability to suppress threatening reality.

  “But we talked about-”

  “What I remember,” she cut in, “is that Nora spoke to me as a friend about her husband’s distress, and we discussed it. At no time did I instruct you, or place you under pressure, to discharge Mr. Shapiro. In fact, I specifically emphasized that it was a matter of medical judgment, for you alone to decide.”

  We gazed at each other for a few seconds and I saw nothing but cold determination in those gray eyes. Fuck you, I thought. That’s why you got me up here so fast. Not to reassure me or stand behind me, but to force this false version of the past on me and to wriggle out of responsibility.

  “That’s not how I remember it,” I said.

  She stared at me and the room temperature seemed to drop several degrees. She spoke slowly, as if she’d rehearsed what she had to say. “I’ve gone back over the events since then, and I’m confident I acted correctly. I’m sure that once you’ve had a chance to reflect, you’ll realize that’s true. You wouldn’t want to place any wild accusations on record, I’m sure, Dr. Cowper. That wouldn’t help your career.”

  Her threat was as blatant as her original lie, and I had to struggle not to lose my temper. “I wouldn’t say anything untrue about Mr. Shapiro’s case. I’d tell the truth.”

  Duncan opened her mouth as if about to say something more but seemed to have second thoughts. Instead, she leaned back and breathed out, deciding not to take the confrontation any further. She’d let me know how tough she was prepared to get. Instead, she rose and walked back to her desk, resting the fingers of both hands stiffly on the surface.

  “Don’t be upset about this, Dr. Cowper,” she said, as if it were my intemperate nature rather than her lie that had caused the trouble. “The insurers will be in touch and hopefully it won’t get to court. We have a strong defense.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Duncan,” I said, getting up. I wondered whether we were supposed to shake hands, but she didn’t make a move in my direction. After a couple of seconds, I retreated to the door in confusion.