Whittaker 02 The One We Love

by Donna White Glaser

  “Wow. I hadn’t realized that. I’m not really political,” I said.

  “Regina shared their fervency. I know you’re the therapist and everything, but are you sure you’re not working out some kind of Freudian thing here? Trying to make amends to the dead or something?”

  I grinned. “Maybe. There are definitely some loose ends that I need to pull together. I guess you could say that I’m just trying to ‘do the next right thing.’” I invoked the AA slogan that acknowledges the lack of a plan, but a motivating force of good intentions.

  “So what’s the part you can’t explain?”

  Huh. Like a bloodhound scenting truth she’d circled back to the one point I’d tried to obfuscate. I sighed.

  “I can’t tell you, because I don’t know if it’s true. Looking over Regina’s files, I found some things that don’t add up. I think Regina was looking into it, too. Look, if I’m wrong, just the suggestion of it could destroy the shelter’s reputation. I’m being honest.” Well, now I was. “I need more time at the shelter. I need a freer hand with the files, not just Regina’s. As for the rest, I just can’t tell you more than that.”

  Beth’s turn to sigh. Shaking her head, she looked off into the distance, weighing my words. We sat in silence for so long that I’d about given up. And maybe I was asking too much. She didn’t know me. Her allegiance was to the shelter. The aura of AA could only invoke so much loyalty.

  “Anybody looking for a high-risk lifestyle should try honesty,” she said turning back to me. “It’s a bitch, ain’t it?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay, here are the rules. We’ll go with your survey plan. It makes sense and it would be good for the shelter either which way. They’ve moved the board meeting up to tomorrow so I better scramble if I’m going to get more support for this idea. It can’t just be me behind this, although I hate that kind of behind-the-scenes politicking. Anyway, you meet with me in two weeks and tell me exactly what’s going on, in detail. If your suspicions”—her fingers twitched quote marks—“turn into fact, you call me right away. Don’t wait. Last, if any of this harms even one of our residents, then you’ll answer to me. And I don’t play by the rules. Get me?”

  I did.

  After some stilted good-bye noises, we divvied up the check and left. In the parking lot, just before I angled off toward my car, she said, “Letty? Be careful what you ask for. You might get it.”

  She never did tell me why she was willing to let me go ahead.

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  The whole encounter with Beth, particularly her parting shot, had left me unsettled. As 4:00 neared, I tried to pull myself together. The meeting with Bettina Reyes was going to be tricky, and I needed my wits about me.

  For a woman in an illicit affair, Bettina was rather dumpy. And crabby, too. Couldn’t really blame her for the latter attribute since she hadn’t wanted to meet with me in the first place, and she most certainly didn’t want to hear what I had to tell her. Still, I had to give it a try. At the very least, I needed to find out who her amorous counselor was. Since Regina hadn’t included his name in the file, I wouldn’t be able to pursue the ethics review without more information. Not to mention, I didn’t want to lose sight of the fact that Regina’s knowledge could have been very threatening to one of our colleagues.

  Enough to kill her?

  After greeting Bettina in the clinic lobby, I led the way to my office. She walked uncomfortably close behind, so much so that I could smell her breath mints over my shoulder. Motioning her to a chair, I tried to discreetly uncrinkle the leather of my shoe heel where she’d trod on it. Twice. She hadn’t apologized.

  “Thank you for coming in,” I started. “I’m sure this is diffi—”

  “I just want to get this over with.”

  “I underst—”

  “No. You don’t. None of you seem to understand that this isn’t any of your business. I’m a grown woman. I’m not being abused. I’m not being mistreated. For the first time in my life I’m very happy. I thought that’s what you the-rapists want for us.”

  It took me a moment to realize she’d bifurcated the word: therapist. Freud would have had a heyday with her word choice, given “therapist” lover. Client or not, the temptation to respond sarcastically was hard to resist.

  As I struggled, I was hit by an uncomfortable realization. Either Bettina Reyes was my client—in the same way she was TheRapist’s client—or she wasn’t. I couldn’t have it both ways. No matter how badly I wanted to know who the therapist was and whether he’d had anything to do with Regina’s death, that didn’t override my responsibility to Bettina. Not even if murder was involved. Bettina had to be my priority. Otherwise I was just using my role to manipulate her into a position she didn’t want to be in. Therapist, indeed.

  So for the second time that day I had to resort to the telling the truth. I truly hoped it didn’t get to be a habit.

  “I don’t know the name of the other therapist. Regina never recorded it. I have no way, without your cooperation, of following through with an ethics complaint.”

  She blinked. “Then why did you have me come in?”

  “Because I needed to give you the chance to talk about what it might mean to you when you heard that Regina died. Especially since you two were in disagreement over your, um, lover. I wanted to make sure that you know the door is always open if you need to talk about the situation. I won’t lie …” Well, not under these circumstances. “I totally agree with Regina that he should be reported. I do believe that his actions are unethical and that you are being mistreated. But unless you tell me his name, I can’t do anything about it.

  “Which is kind of freeing, I hope. For you, I mean. Instead of resenting me for going against your wishes, you can just talk about how you feel. Or if you’d prefer to see another therapist, that’s fine, too. Either way, you’re in the driver’s seat. But keep in mind: I’m under the same ethical strictures as Regina. If I learn his name, I will report him. No question about it. So, what do you think?” I relaxed back in my chair, waiting for her answer.

  She started crying. Therapy began.

  Since Regina had been killed at the shelter, detouring into the Reyes affair was a long shot and I feared getting too distracted. However, I also couldn’t ignore it. Plus Regina had made a habit of roping her colleagues in the community to volunteer hours at the shelter. Theoretically the killer might be someone only tenuously connected to the shelter. Unfortunately, that meant I had to go to the only person I could think of who might know the background on the Reyes case. If he was still in town, that is.

  Later, as Hannah and I were preparing the big room for the grief group, I dithered back and forth about asking her if she knew Marshall’s whereabouts. I’d come to terms with the fact that Bettina might never feel comfortable revealing her lover’s identity, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try other means to see if it tied in to Regina’s death.

  I finally blurted out my question. After asking, I couldn’t figure out what to do with my hands, so I pretended to fuss with the stack of paper cups next to the water pitcher. There is only so much arranging you can do with a stack of Styrofoam cups—one really tall stack or two short ones. I went with two.

  Hannah watched my machinations, then gently asked, “Do you want me to find out?”

  Abandoning my cup maneuvers, I flopped down on one of the folding chairs. At first glance, it seemed a remarkably straightforward question. Did I want Hannah to find out if Marshall was in town?

  But it meant more than just a yes-or-no answer. It meant purposely arranging a meeting with a man who obviously didn’t want to be with me. Not an ego boost, that. Even if we met for professional reasons, there would be all sorts of hot and cold undercurrents swirling around the conversation. Very high school-esque. Very distracting.

  Perhaps this wasn’t the best time for distractions.

  CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

  I tossed and turned all night obsessively pull
ing petals off an imaginary daisy. Should I call him? Should I not? Siggy stuck with me until about midnight when he grew so disgusted with my shifting that he deserted me for the couch pillow. Around 3:00 a.m. another avenue occurred to me.

  Lisa, of course.

  I got to work early, bringing our office manager her favorite breakfast: a half-dozen crullers and a bucket-sized cup of coffee. Ever suspicious, but not one to turn down fresh-baked bribes, Lisa busied herself with cream and sugar.

  “Hey, Lisa, I’ve got a question for you.”

  “No shit.” At least I think that’s what she said. By the looks of it, her words had to navigate past a mouthful of cruller to get to me.

  “The file you found the other day? The one pending review? Can we figure out who Regina referred the client’s husband to?”

  “Who referred the client?”

  “No. Her husband. Regina gave the client a list of referrals for the client’s husband, but she didn’t document them in the client’s file.”

  Lisa’s eyes sparkled. This was just the kind of data hunt she loved. Or else it was the caffeine/sugar rush. She spun her chair to the cart where yesterday’s cases were waiting to be filed. With unerring efficiency, she slid Bettina Reyes’s out of a teetering stack of manila folder clones.

  Flipping it open, she paged through the documents, mumbling to herself. I didn’t know what she was looking for, but I knew better than to ask. After more flipping and mumbling, she slapped the file closed.

  “OK, she was referred by Dr. Feldman. He’s on the board at the shelter.”

  “I know. I met him. He’s retired.”

  “Only semi-retired. He still takes on an occasional client. He might have, for Regina. Sometimes she’d send someone over to Kyle Channing over at Wellness Center. He’s got a waiting list a mile long, so it’s tough to get anyone into him.”

  “Why not refer to anyone here?” I asked.

  “She usually would unless the client was specifically looking for a male therapist. In that case, who do we have? Marshall didn’t see clients, so that would leave Bob.” She snorted, efficiently expressing her opinion on that one.

  “They were pretty close,” I said. “Maybe she would.”

  “They weren’t close. He was her minion, not her colleague. Except …”

  “Except what?”

  “If there was a chance of doing co-therapy, maybe. I think there have been maybe three cases over the years where Regina and Bob acted as co-therapists for a marital couple. I think that way she’d still be in charge. Bob liked it because all he did was sit there.”

  “Anybody else?” I asked.

  “Not that I can think of. And I would probably know. If one of our therapists refers someone, we filled out a form with the contact info to make it easier on the client.”

  “But we don’t keep a copy of that form?”

  She frowned. It appeared I’d found a miniscule glitch in her system. Lisa did not allow imperfection. She reached for a sticky note and jotted a reminder. “We do now.”

  “Ok, so Dr. Feldman, Kyle Channing, and … Bob.”

  “Yup. So now that I’ve answered your question, you can answer mine. What gives?” Lisa worked on a strict quid quo pro basis. If I was getting info, I’d better be ready to give it. Instead, I pointed to the cruller crumbs littered across her desk. “That was your fee.”

  Her Icelandic blue eyes narrowed. “Not good enough,” she said.

  I dangled the bag with the five remaining crullers in it. She eyed it, but I could see her weighing her choices. She’d already had one cruller fix, but her curiosity had been let loose, too. It was a battle of the appetites.

  I jiggled the bag gently, letting the pastries rasp seductively against the white paper bag. I’d always loved fishing.

  For once, I didn’t want the donuts anyway. My stomach had been queasy ever since the image of Bob doing the nasty with Bettina entered my mind. I kept telling myself there were two other options, but I knew Kyle. He was a good guy, mid-thirties with a charming wife and three cute kids. We often attended the same trainings and had one of those quasi-deep relationships that survived despite infrequent meetings where we had to cram a lot of catching up together over the break periods and lunch hour provided at the trainings. He was one of the few colleagues who knew about my alcoholism. Well, to be honest, he knew about it before I did since, over the years, he’d watched me guzzle wine with far more desperation than a dry turkey sandwich and a boring conference would seem to warrant.

  I didn’t think it was him.

  It could be Feldman, the shelter board member. In fact, despite his leather sandals and scraggly, gray braid, I was really rooting for him. Aging hippie sex was ever so much more appealing than any kind of sweaty coupling with … Bob. I gagged.

  I dug through my purse looking for the card Feldman had given me at the board meeting. I found it buried under my wallet and makeup case. It was covered with a fine dusting of face powder where my compact had broken. I tossed the powder in the trash, where it landed with a clatter in the empty basket.

  I quickly dialed Feldman’s phone number before I could chicken out. It only rang twice before I hung up. My bravery had lasted seventeen seconds. I hadn’t really thought it through, anyway. Feldman wouldn’t be able to tell me if Frank Reyes was his patient. I didn’t have any kind of authorization for release of information. It wouldn’t be possible for Feldman to confirm a relationship with Frank one way or another. And if he was shagging Bettina, it wasn’t likely he’d admit it.

  I could always stake out Bettina’s house and follow her to whichever guy she was seeing. That was not only unethical on several levels, but far beyond my capabilities.

  So I snuck into the file room and looked for a file on Frank Reyes. If we had one, it eliminated everyone but Bob. I told myself that as long as I didn’t look into the file, I wasn’t breaking confidentiality. Besides, someone had to put Bettina’s file away. So I did. Right in between the two other Reyeses: Amelia and Francis.

  Ugh. It was Bob.

  CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

  Luckily, Bob had chosen to take one of his many long weekends and I didn’t have to deal with running into him in the hallway. My imagination was abusing me enough. I felt like a kid who’d been in denial about her parents’ sex lives until I walked in on them. Except sex between two consenting adults was an entirely different matter than between client, adult or otherwise, and therapist. Especially when that TheRapist was Bob.

  At any rate, I had time to consider what I should do. I really wasn’t sure how or, given the way I’d discovered Bob’s involvement, even if I could report him to the licensing board. I was only semi-comfortable with my “looking at a file is not the same as looking in a file” rationale. There was also the slight possibility that Frank had seen Bob, realized what a knuckle-head he was, and decided to go to someone else. I decided to shelve the Bob-the-pig dilemma in favor of the name-that-killer one.

  Unless those were the same thing.

  The whole thing hinged on whether Bob had access to the shelter or not. If he’d ever been shanghaied by Regina into providing services, then I supposed he could have figured out how to get hold of a duplicate key or something. Seemed awfully long-sighted, though. It was also doubtful that Regina would have asked Bob. As Lisa already pointed out, she didn’t have a whole lot of respect for his clinical skills.

  On the other hand, if Bob ever referred a woman to the shelter, he might conceivably continue on as her counselor. It would make sense for him to use the shelter’s therapy office. It was possible.

  Unfortunately, I had no way of proving any of it.

  I decided to give Blodgett a call. After nearly a week since his attack, he might be getting restless at his enforced inactivity. Blodgett, despite his lackadaisical appearance, was not a sit-in-the-recliner kind of guy. Feeling guilty that I hadn’t checked in on him or Diana for several days, I dialed their house first, hoping he’d been discharged by now. No answer.r />
  The number I had for his hospital room rang nine times. Just as I was about to hang up, Diana answered. Before she’d said anything more than “hello,” my heart sank. Even with just one word, it was all in her voice. One small word with a universe of fear filling it.

  “Diana? Are you okay?” Stupid, stupid question. I wanted to bite my tongue off.

  “He’s in surgery, Letty. We were just getting ready to leave. It happened so suddenly.”

  “What? What happened?”

  “They think he had a heart attack. We were just getting ready to leave. They were bringing the wheelchair up, you know? They make you ride in a wheelchair? Then all of a sudden, Del said, ‘Di. Di.’ Just that, you know? Just my name. He sounded so strange. Like he was scared, maybe. And he tried to sit down, but he missed the bed and fell into that stupid table. The one on wheels, you know? Oh my gosh, you never heard such a noise. But everyone heard that, and I was yelling, you know. So all of a sudden the room was just full of people. Which is a good thing, you know? Because I didn’t know what to do. I just didn’t know what to do, Letty. He’s in surgery now. They took him in so fast. Just whisked him right away.”

  “I’m coming, Diana. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  Since I was coming from the clinic, it was a straight shot up Clairemont. Finding my way back to Blodgett’s room took longer than the drive over. It was empty when I got there, so I jogged over to the nurses’ station to ask where I could find Diana. A tired-looking nurse had me wait while she paged for a “walker” to escort me to the waiting area outside of surgery. With all the remodeling and the resulting rat maze connecting old sections to new, they’d apparently found it expedient to use volunteers as escorts.

  Elderly volunteers, as a matter of fact.