by Brenda Novak
Weird. She rolled her shoulders and looked at Carmine. “Do you feel that?”
“What?”
“I don’t know.” She alternately rubbed her wrists. “Like static electricity.”
“Nope.”
A thirty-something woman manned the receptionist desk. Attractive with a nice smile.
“Good morning,” Carmine said. “I’m Detective Angelo, this is Detective Dare. We’re here to see Dr. Blackwood.”
“Of course,” she said, smile over-bright. “I’ll just let her know you’ve arrived.”
Her voice shook slightly and as she reached for the phone, she nearly knocked over her bottle of water.
A moment later, she replaced the receiver. “Dr. Blackwood will be out directly. Could I get you a cup of coffee or a bottle of water while you’re waiting?”
Before they could answer, the double doors to the right of the receptionist’s desk opened and a handsome woman stepped out. Forty-something, trim and elegant, smile as perfect as her blond bob.
“Detectives,” she said crossing to them, hand out. “Welcome.”
Micki clasped her hand. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with us, Dr. Blackwood. I’m Detective Dare, this is my partner, Detective Angelo.”
Introductions and greetings complete, she motioned them into her office, closing the doors behind them. “Please, have a seat.”
Micki would have preferred to stand but sat anyway, hoping to appear more relaxed than she was. Although, she decided, something about the woman’s intent, brown gaze suggested she would see right through that.
Blackwood folded her hands on the desk in front of her. “You said you wanted to ask me some questions about two of my clients?”
“Yes. Bitty Vanderlund and Cherry Chablis.”
Not a flicker in those almost liquid brown eyes. “What can I do for you?”
“Are you aware that both Vanderlund and Chablis have been arrested and charged in separate and unrelated murders?”
“Yes, I am.”
Micki cocked an eyebrow. “That’s it? All you have to say?”
The shrink moved her gaze between them. “I’m not sure what you want from me, Detective. It was a shocking turn of events.”
Something about the woman, her tone of voice, the way she held herself, grated. Like Jack from Club Me-Oh-My, Micki decided she didn’t like Renee Blackwood. “Was it? Shocking?”
Angelo cleared his throat. Blackwood’s eyebrows rose ever-so-slightly. “Of course it was. And extremely distressing. I worked with them both for several years.”
Angelo stepped in before Micki could point out to the woman that she looked anything but distressed. “Did either of them give you any indication they were—”
“Planning to commit murder? Of course not. I’m required by law to report viable threats to the authorities.”
“What constitutes a viable threat?” Micki asked.
The psychiatrist bristled. “Excuse me?”
“It’d be your call, right? Isn’t that rather subjective for something so urgent? And considering the intimate nature of your relationship with your clients, what does it take to separate real from fictional?”
The corners of Blackwood’s lips lifted slightly. “In any relationship there’s an element of subjectivity, Detective. Did I miss something with Bitty and Cherry? I don’t know.”
“You must have. They both snapped. Their word, not mine.”
“We all have a ‘snapping’ point, Detective. It’s like an emotional fault line. The right circumstances, amount of pressure, internal or external, and a break occurs.”
“You’re talking about a psychotic break.”
“Yes.” Her lips shifted into a small, condescending smile. “We all have the capacity for violence. You’re in law enforcement; you, more than most, should understand that.”
“Can I ask you a question, Dr. Blackwood?”
“Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“Within twenty-four hours, two of your patients snapped and killed a rival—who also happened to hold a title of queen. Don’t you think that’s a bizarre coincidence?”
“Absolutely.”
“Here’s the deal—” Mickie leaned forward, gaze fixed on the other woman’s. “—I don’t believe in coincidences.”
“What are you getting at, Detective Dare?”
“Nothing,” Angelo said, standing. “Thank you for your time, Dr. Blackwood.”
Micki ignored him. “What did you and Bitty Vanderlund discuss that last morning she was here?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Did she talk about Vivianne Stanley?”
“Once again, that’s confidential.”
“What was her state of mind? Was she agitated? Angry?”
The therapist narrowed her gaze. “My next appointment is due to arrive any—”
“Her family painted a portrait of a sweet-natured woman. One who was in fine spirits the morning of the murder.”
“Part of what makes a psychotic break so shocking to those who know the affected individual, is how contrary to their nature it can appear. Easy going, sweet-natured, happy. This is the way they’re often described. Inside, they’re volcanos of emotion. Thoughts and feelings they ignore are stuffed away, down in the deep recesses alongside all the things they’ve wanted to say over the years, but swallowed.”
There was something mesmerizing about the psychiatrist’s gaze. Micki couldn’t make herself look away.
“And volcanos sometimes erupt,” she finished. “A psychotic break. They lose control—” She snapped her fingers. “—they snap.”
“But a volcano’s eruption isn’t unexpected. There are signs.”
“Steam and rumbles, Detective. Similar to what we all display at various times.”
“So, you’re saying she stuffed her true feelings. That’s why she was seeing you.”
“No,” she corrected, tone careful, “I was speaking generally about psychotic breaks. The underlying cause and why family is often taken by surprise when it happens.”
“You saw her the morning of the murder, correct?”
“I believe we already established that.”
“And seeing how agitated she was, you just let her walk out?”
“I didn’t say she was agitated. But nice try, Detective.” She stood. “I’m so sorry, but I’m out of time.”
Micki followed her to her feet. “Did you just write her a prescription and send her on her way? Out of sight, out of mind?”
“You’re so angry, Detective. Why is that?”
She was, Micki realized. And she wasn’t sure why. Something about the other woman, her steady gaze that seemed to say: You’re like Bitty and Cherry. Stuffing your true feelings. Your anger and hurt. Deep down. Where they grow and fester.
Micki worked to get ahold of her runaway thoughts. To control the emotion bubbling up inside.
“Not angry, Dr. Blackwood. Just not a fan of pill-happy shrinks. Vanderlund and Chablis came to you for help. Now, both are in jail facing murder charges. I don’t know about you, but to me that seems really fucked up.”
Angelo cleared his throat and stepped between them. “Thank you for your time, Dr. Blackwood.”
Her lips curved up. Superior. Controlled. The kind of woman who would never, ever snap.
“You’re very welcome, Detective Angelo. I truly wish this had ended differently.”
She walked them to the door. Micki stepped through, then stopped and turned back. “One final thing, Dr. Blackwood, do you practice hypnotherapy?”
The woman looked as surprised by the question as Micki felt at having asked it.
Her eyes narrowed slightly; the brown irises seemed to become darker. “That’s not my area, Detective.”
“Which doesn’t answer my question.”
“No,” she said, “I do not.”
Without another word, she turned and walked back to her office, shutting the door behind her.
Mick
i glanced from the closed door to the receptionist. She had gone white. She realized Micki was looking at her and pasted on the same bright smile as earlier. The curving of her mouth looked odd against her pale cheeks.
“Have a good day, Detectives!”
As they exited the building, Micki sucked in a lungful of fresh, cold air. It cleared her head.
“What happened in there, Dare?”
“What do you mean?”
“C’mon, you know what I mean. You were starting to lose it.”
Starting? He was being generous. “She rubbed me the wrong way.”
“Obviously.”
“You didn’t pick up something off about her?”
“Not really. A little creepy the way her voice didn’t change, no matter what she was talking about.”
Creepy, Micki thought. That was it. She rubbed her arms, as if doing so would rub the feeling off of her. “There’s something not quite right about that woman.”
“Like what? Plaques on the wall, smiling receptionist, family photos on her desk.”
“I know, but—”
“What?”
“Her eyes. Did you notice how they seemed to change color?”
Apparently not, by the way he was looking at her.
Like she had lost her mind.
“Forget about it.”
“Good call, Dare. Vanderlund and Chablis snapped. You heard what Blackwood said, it can happen to anybody. Let it go before you start sounding like a head case.”
Concern in his voice. Maybe even second thoughts about their partnership.
He was right. Time to let it go, move on.
“I must be hungry,” she said, pasting on a smile she imagined looked just like Blackwood’s receptionist’s. “How about we see if that pizza place has any slices?”
Chapter Fourteen
10:25 A.M.
Micki sat at her newly appointed desk. Mardi Gras weekend had passed in a purple, green, and gold blur. The weather had been fabulous, the crowds huge but thankfully, peaceful. Fat Tuesday had become Ash Wednesday. A day of regrouping and reflection. Of cleaning up, literally and figuratively.
She’d made her official transition to the Eighth. Very little fanfare. Quiet day. One of the quietest of the year, Carmine had told her. Everybody was either doing penance or nursing a hangover. A bad one.
The quiet had given her too much time to think. Her mind kept going back to Vanderlund, splattered with blood, crown perched atop her head. Chablis sprawled on the sidewalk, confused and weeping. And Renee Blackwood’s calm, evenly modulated voice as she explained why psychotic breaks occur.
Carmine sauntered in, carrying a mangled pastry box and sporting a cross-shaped black smudge on his forehead. He eyed her. “What’s up?”
“Nothing. Why?”
“You’ve got that look on your face.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “We’ve been partners less than a week, and you already know my ‘looks’?”
“Mmm hmm.” He set the box on his desk and turned back to her. “You’re chewin’ hard on something.”
“Can’t stop thinking about Vanderlund, Chablis, and—”
“Blackwood.”
“Right.” Micki thrummed her fingers on the desk. “Why can’t I let this go? Accept the win and move on?”
“You want there to be more to the story. Don’t know why, partner, seems like a major energy suck to me.”
She changed the subject. “What’s in the box?”
“Leftover king cake. Wife wanted it out of the house. Want a piece?”
“Hell, yeah. Maybe it’ll improve my mood.”
He laughed and a moment later handed her a piece on a brown paper towel.
Processed white flour, sticky icing, sugar sprinkles dyed purple, green, and gold: a dietician’s nightmare. She took a bite. “Have you noticed most king cake tastes like crap?”
He took a huge bite. “Yeah.”
“Then why do we love it?”
“Tradition, Dare. It’d be wrong not to.”
Maybe that was it, she thought. The reason why she couldn’t let go. Murder investigations weren’t supposed to fall so neatly into place. She wanted to complicate things, make there be more to the story.
No. She wanted the shrink to be the bad guy. What was it about the woman that seriously rubbed her the wrong way?
What the Me-Oh-My bartender had said in defense of his friend popped in her head. Mind control. At the time she’d laughed it off, focused on having made the connection between the two murders.
Micki turned to her computer and googled Hypnotherapy New Orleans. A list of practitioners popped up. And there, large as life, was Dr. Renee Blackwood’s name.
“Son of a bitch.”
“What?”
“She lied. Blackwood—when I asked her if she practiced hypnotherapy. She told me it wasn’t her area.”
Mickie turned the monitor his way. For a long moment, he said nothing. Then he sighed. “You’re going to make more work for us, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m not.” She returned her gaze to the screen. “Absolutely not.”
She wasn’t going to make more work for anybody but herself.
***
Micki decided to swing by Blackwood’s office on her way home. Never mind that the Uptown address was nowhere near where she lived. She’d spent the afternoon—between a call to the scene of a domestic dispute and an armed robbery—researching hypnosis and hypnotherapy in an attempt to ascertain whether what she was thinking was even a possibility.
Could someone be programmed through hypnosis to commit a crime?
She had learned that under the right set of circumstances, it was plausible.
Plausible didn’t seem like a helluva lot to go on, but it was all she had.
Micki got lucky. She caught Blackwood’s smiling receptionist, locking up for the day. Micki tapped her horn to get the woman’s attention, then did a U-turn to swing into the parking lot.
“Hi,” Micki said, climbing out of her car. “Pam, right?”
The woman did not look happy to see her. “Yes.”
“You might not remember me, I’m—”
“I remember you. Detective Dare. Dr. Blackwood’s gone for the day.”
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“Your boss.”
She shook her head. “I have nothing to say.”
“Is she good to work for?”
“She pays me well.”
“Which doesn’t answer my question. Is she a good therapist?”
“I guess so. Her appointment book is full and her clients keep coming back.”
The receptionist unlocked her car and swung open the door. Micki noticed that, like the other day, her hands were shaking. “Do I make you nervous, Pam? Because I’m a cop?”
“Of course not.”
“Then why are your hands shaking?”
She folded her arms across her chest. “Too much coffee.”
“They were shaking the other day, too. So badly, you almost knocked over your bottle of water.”
She didn’t comment and Micki went on. “You’re afraid of her, aren’t you?”
“No. That’s crazy.”
“Is it?”
“I have to go.”
“Do you know Bitty Vanderlund or Cherry Chablis?”
“I know who they are. They came in often.”
“How often?”
“It used to be once a week. Recently, it was more.”
“What changed that they were coming in more?”
“I don’t know. That’s none of my business.”
“Let me rephrase: had anything changed in their demeanors?”
She hesitated. Wet her lips. “They seemed more…anxious.”
“When they came in?”
Pam nodded.
“What about after their sessions?”
“Better. I don’t know, calm. Sort of refreshed.”
“That�
��s one of the good side effects of being hypnotized, isn’t it?”
“I’ve got to go. My kids are waiting.” She made a move to climb into the vehicle.
Micki laid a hand on her arm, stopping her. “Why are you afraid, Pam? Tell me, I can help—”
She jerked her arm away. “I need this job, Detective. Please leave me alone.”
She slid into her car, slammed the door, and started the engine. Micki tapped on the window, held up a business card.
Pam cracked the window. “What?”
Micki slid the card through. “Take this. My numbers are on it, just in case.”
“Of what?”
“You tell me, Pam.”
Micki looked her dead in the eyes. She thought she saw desperation in the other woman’s gaze. She hoped she was wrong. She hoped Pam didn’t take the card.
But she did. Snatched it from Micki’s fingers and tossed it into her purse.
Micki watched her drive off and wondered if she had made the right decision.
Chapter Fifteen
9:25 P.M.
The next morning, Renee Blackwood called before Micki had finished her second cup of coffee. She had wondered if her poking and prodding would cause a reaction. According to her caller I.D., it had.
A rush of adrenalin shot through her veins; Micki worked to get a handle on it as she answered. “Good morning, Dr. Blackwood. What can I do for you this morning?”
“You can tell me what the fuck you were doing at my office last night.”
The woman’s crude language took her aback. “Excuse me?”
“I’ll tell you what you were doing. Bullying my employee. Trying to intimidate her.”
“If that’s what she told you, let me assure you that wasn’t—”
“Don’t bother to deny it, Detective. This borders on harassment.”
“Hardly. A few simple questions—”
“What do you hold most dear, Detective Dare?”
Gooseflesh raced up her arms. “What did you say?”
“How would you feel if someone was messing with the one thing, the one person, you couldn’t live without?”
Hank. His image popped into her head. The soothing sound of his voice.
Micki stiffened. “Are you threatening me, Dr. Blackwood?”