The Right Wrong Thing

by Ellen Kirschman

  WIES, Women in Emergency Services, is an organization for women cops, fire fighters, and EMTs. We meet every other month to help each other prepare for promotions, deal with harassment, EEO complaints, and all the many hurdles women in law enforcement face.

  “Did she ever talk about her shooting?”

  Jackie gives me the once over. “Are you a reporter?”

  “I told you. I’m the KPD psychologist.”

  “She told us she saw some shrink after the shooting. Told us the shrink was making goo-goo eyes at Rich. Was that you?”

  “Absolutely not. I hardly knew Rich. There was another therapist involved. For couples’ counseling.”

  Jackie adjusts something on her duty belt. Correctional officers used to carry a pound of keys and jingle whenever they moved. Electronics has replaced all that. “I went to her funeral. We all did. That SOB Darnell Taylor killed her. He’s been in here a dozen times. I’m surprised he got out with only a beating.”

  “Do you have any idea why Randy would put herself in harm’s way? Not take someone with her when she went to talk to Lakeisha Gibbs’ family?”

  “Is that what she did? I just knew she was murdered, I never knew the details.”

  “It’s almost like she was asking to be hurt.” I’m playing this like Columbo. Stupid. Naïve. Innocent. It worked for him, every episode.

  Jackie motions me through a side door into a small room with a coffeepot, a vending machine, a sink, three tables, and a bulletin board. She leans against the Formica counter.

  “After the shooting, Randy was not a happy camper. I’m not saying she was suicidal. Nothing like that. Never crossed my mind. But she was mixed up.”

  “How?”

  “She felt like crap for killing that kid. Who wouldn’t? But there was more. She and Rich weren’t getting along. I told her to see a marriage counselor. That’s probably when she found Dr. Goo-Goo Eyes.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  “This is the confidential voice mail for Dr. Marvel Johnson. I’m so glad you called and sorry I can’t come to the phone right now. Please leave a message and your phone number, slow and clear, and I’ll call you back as soon as I’m able. Have a great day and be safe.” I hang up and call back again. She picks up.

  “Screening your calls, Dr. Johnson?”

  “No, not at all. I just couldn’t get to the phone in time.” Her voice changes to a twitter. “How have you been? How is everything?”

  “I want to talk to you.”

  She loses the twitter. “About what?”

  “I’d prefer to talk in person. How’s five this afternoon?”

  “I have a client. Sorry.”

  “Six?”

  “That won’t work either. I have appointments booked through the evening.”

  “Are you seeing anyone at ten p.m.?”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “Good, I’ll be there at ten.” She starts to protest, and I hang up, planning to be in her waiting room long before that, just in case she has an opportunistically scheduled last-minute cancellation.

  * * *

  Dr. Johnson’s office is located in one of Kenilworth’s few high-rise office buildings, all copper-tinted glass and steel. Her waiting room is furnished with antique rugs and custom-designed chairs. Beautiful prints and Japanese textiles hang on the wall. Frank tells me Midwestern taste runs to pheasant motifs and Native American paraphernalia. No wonder the marvelous Marvel Johnson is overjoyed that her caseload is full to the brim. She’s probably up to her ears in debt for the furnishings as well as the services of the decorator who chose them.

  “So nice to see you again, Dr. Meyerhoff.” She strides across the waiting room, her hand extended toward me. A streak of pettiness keeps me from shaking it. I reach for my purse instead. “Come in,” she says, unfazed. “Would you like something? Water, tea, cappuccino? I just bought one of those machines with the little capsules. You can have caffeine, decaf, flavored—”

  “Shut up and sit down,” I say.

  I am more startled than she is at the tone of my voice.

  “Is there something going on between you and Rich Spelling?”

  Her mouth drops open and then closes. “What do you mean? I was his therapist. You know that.”

  “Was? You’re not his therapist anymore?”

  Her face tightens just slightly. “No, not anymore. We terminated our work.”

  “Why?”

  “How is that your concern?”

  “The average period of mourning for the death of a spouse is about three years. Randy dies and Rich terminates therapy barely a month later? I know you don’t believe in prolonged terminations, but that seems pretty abrupt.”

  She hesitates. Bites her lower lip. “Sorry to say, but I wasn’t able to help him any further. Sometimes you just get to a point with a client when you don’t seem to be making any progress. It’s unethical to continue taking their money. You know, like how it was with you and Randy.”

  An unrestrained flood of rage urges me out of my chair and across the room so that I can slap Marvel Johnson’s face until she spins uncontrollably in her pricey Herman Miller Aeron chair. I take a deep breath, and then another until the urge passes.

  “Randy and I were working well together until you interfered.”

  “You were stalled. Therapy wasn’t working. Randy told me so.”

  “And you believed her? She was manipulating you. She wanted to apologize to Ms. Gibbs, a very dangerous, possibly suicidal thing to do, as we both now know all too well.” I watch her face for something, signs of remorse, fear, whatever. I get nothing.

  “You actually encouraged her with your ten steps to healing PTSD crap. Making amends. That’s what got her killed. Plus you padded your therapy hours with the world’s longest fitness-for-duty evaluation and then you violated every ethical guideline in the book for patient transfer.”

  She backs up a little in her chair. “What do you want?”

  “The truth.” Her mouth settles into a grim line.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Then figure it out, Dr. Goo-Goo eyes.”

  A small tic begins pulsing under her left eye.

  “Dr. Goo Who? I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Don’t you now? Are you, were you having an affair with Rich Spelling?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “The same person that Randy told.”

  “Randy was a very disturbed woman.”

  “I see. You believed her when she told you that therapy with me was going nowhere. But when she told someone you were making eyes at her husband, then you accuse her of lying. How convenient. Randy had PTSD. She wasn’t psychotic. I think she lied to you and told the truth to her friend.”

  “Get out of my office.” Marvel stands. “Now.” Her voice tilts up at the edges, with just the hint of a whine. Next she’ll start pouting and stamp her foot.

  Silence is a therapeutic strategy that works the same with Marvel as it does with my clients. The longer I hold my tongue and stay in my seat, the more ridiculous she looks standing up, pointing at the door. I focus on my breathing. She focuses on me, as if glaring at me would shock me into speaking. Finally she sits again, primly, with her legs crossed at the ankles and her hands cupped in her lap. She sighs loudly, getting ready to patronize me with some little crumb of information.

  “I’m going to assume that this is a confidential consultation between peers and for this reason only, I will present some aspects of my clinical work.”

  She is not my peer, not even close. It irritates me, not only that she thinks she is, but that I even care what she thinks.

  “Rich was very lonely; Randy was caught up in her own problems. She didn’t have any time for him. He felt abandoned and this activated memories of childhood neglect. His father worked all the time and his mother was so depressed she couldn’t get out of bed. She never cooked and sometimes forgot to pick him up after school. So he tran
sferred his feelings to me. I was a surrogate for the love and attention he wasn’t getting at home.”

  “His wife didn’t understand him? What a novel reason to begin an affair. So tell me, what step in your ten-point plan to eternal happiness is fucking your therapist?”

  “It is not necessary for you to be crude.” She glares at me. “We did not have an affair. I wouldn’t consider it. Rich was hard to work with, very concrete in his thinking. You must have seen that.”

  “Rich wasn’t my client, Randy was.” If he had been, maybe I would have seen through the veneer of aggrieved husband to the needy little boy underneath who couldn’t stand not having Randy’s full attention.

  “Rich needed a distraction, something to do to keep busy.” She sits straight in her chair like she’s giving a book report to the teacher. “His department doesn’t have a peer-support team. After Randy’s shooting, he realized how much he and Randy could have used one. So he was going to start a team, and I was helping him. That’s why I saw him extra times. At no charge. If Randy thought something else was going on, she was wrong. I’m surprised she even noticed.”

  “Let me make sure I understand. You were using Rich to help worm your way into his department.”

  “It was a survivor’s mission. Making something positive out of something bad is a well-regarded therapeutic strategy. Part of his healing.”

  “Congratulations. Of all the self-serving rationalizations I’ve heard, this one takes the cake. The Board of Psychology will be fascinated.”

  “Do what you need to do. This is no longer my problem. I’m surrendering my California license to practice psychology and moving back to Nebraska.”

  “And why is that?”

  She takes a large draft of air. “He tried to kiss me. I was shocked, believe me.” I don’t, of course. “That’s when I realized what was happening. I didn’t wait a minute. I told him that I couldn’t be his therapist anymore. Or Randy’s either. I told him that the ethical guidelines for psychotherapists are very clear about this, psychotherapy never includes sex.”

  “And then what happened?” Her face mottles.

  “He asked what would happen if a therapist and patient fell in love?”

  “What did you say?”

  “I told him that if a therapist and client fall in love, guidelines say they have to wait a year after termination to see each other again and the therapist has to refer the client to an independent and objective clinician who has been recommended by a third-party therapist.”

  I wonder how Rich understood this potentially enticing bit of information. Given the special attention Marvel had already showered on him, my bet is that he took it as a barely disguised promise of things to come.

  “You see, don’t you? I was in complete accordance with all the ethical principles for psychologists.”

  “What I see is that you seem to have memorized the code of ethics.”

  “Adultery is wrong,” she says. “Even if there were no guidelines, I have principles beyond those of earthly authorities.” She refolds her hands. “Is there anything else?”

  “Yes. Why are you moving back to Nebraska?” She takes another deep breath.

  “After I explained everything, Rich still persisted. He wouldn’t stop coming here or calling me. Even after Randy died, he’d just show up. I’d have another patient and there he’d be sitting in the waiting room. He wouldn’t leave me alone. I felt like I was being stalked. I finally told him that if he didn’t stop, I’d get a restraining order against him and that’s when—” She stops. Closes her eyes. Her breathing is shallow.

  “When what?”

  “That’s when he said, ‘After what I’ve done so that we could be together?’”

  My heart bangs in my chest and I have to force myself to keep breathing normally.

  “What did you think he meant by that?”

  “I was too scared to ask.”

  “You need to go to the police and tell them this.”

  “I can’t break confidentiality.”

  “He may have been telling you that he killed Randy.”

  “If he did kill her, then he’s already committed a crime. I’m not legally obligated to report a past crime.”

  “The police are convinced that a man named Darnell Taylor killed Randy, or that someone in the Gibbs family was responsible. You need to step forward and stop this. If you don’t, somebody innocent could go to prison.”

  “It won’t go that far.”

  “How do you know? At the very least the stain of the accusation will follow them and ruin any chances they have for a decent future.”

  “He’ll kill me. If he killed Randy, he could kill me too. I’ve given notice to my landlord.”

  “He’ll follow you.”

  “Oh, God,” she says, her bravado dissolving into tears. “I’m scared, I don’t know what to do.” Her hands are shaking and for the first time she looks like what she really is and always has been—frightened, confused, and in over her head.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  First thing in the morning I call the chief. Her secretary tells me she’s taking some personal time off this week and won’t be back until Monday, five days away. She’s been taking more and more time away from the office. My bet is that she is wearing down from fighting off memories of her own incident. When traumatic memories come back, they come back with a wallop, dragging all the attached emotions with them. Then there’s the strain of investigating Randy’s death and the pending vote of no confidence. I tell the secretary that my call is urgent and ask if the chief has left an emergency number where she can be reached. “Sorry,” she says, “but my instructions are to direct all calls to Captain Pence.”

  Frankly, I don’t know a chief who wouldn’t leave an emergency number unless they were out of the country. Even then they’d have email or texting or some other inescapable electronic chain to tether them to the job.

  “If she calls in for messages, please ask her to get in touch with me. This is urgent.”

  “Did you hear the news?” the secretary says. “They’ve just arrested Darnell Taylor. He was hiding in the basement of a friend’s house. Excuse me a minute.” She puts me on hold. I can only hope that this time someone has the good sense to incarcerate Darnell someplace where Rich can’t get to him.

  “Captain Pence just came in. I’ll transfer you.”

  I contemplate for a minute whether I should talk to Pence and tell him what I know or wait until the chief returns.

  “Acting Chief Pence, how can I help you?” What a pompous ass. The chief is out for a few days of personal business and he announces himself as though he’s already been anointed as her successor. When he realizes it’s me on the phone, he drops his public-servant voice and reverts back to normal.

  “I hear you have Darnell Taylor in custody,” I say.

  “So?”

  “I have some information that may cast doubt on his guilt. I was going to talk with the chief, but since she’s not available I can tell you.”

  “Do you have a hearing problem, Doctor? I told you once before, interfering with a police investigation is a criminal offense. If I were chief, I’d be seriously considering charging you.”

  “So you don’t want to hear what I have to say?”

  “Get a hearing aid,” he says and hangs up.

  That turned out the way I expected. Now what? Something Eddie Rimbauer once said to me floats into my mind. “Have a plan,” he said. “Then have a backup plan because your first plan won’t work.”

  * * *

  I call Marvel. This time she picks up the minute she hears my voice. “This is what we’re going to do,” I tell her. “You don’t get to vote on this. If you don’t cooperate, I’m telling the police, the Board of Psychology, the newspapers, and anyone else I can think of that you were sexually involved with a client. I’ll also write to the Board of Psychology in Nebraska so you won’t be able to get a license there either.”

  “You have no r
ight to threaten me. I thought we had a confidential patient consultation. If you say anything to anyone, you’re guilty of violating confidentiality.”

  “Reread your Psychology Code of Ethics, Standard 1.05. I would be in violation if I failed to report you knowing that you’ve had an inappropriate relationship that harmed one client and may have led to the death of a second.”

  “We did not have sex. Why won’t you believe me?”

  “You led him on, intimating that you might be available in a year. Why else would he do something so that—and I’m quoting you—the two of you could be together?”

  “Just because he said that doesn’t mean I led him on or that he killed Randy.”

  “You were ethically obligated to terminate your relationship with Rich and Randy the minute you recognized he had romantic feelings for you. And you were ethically responsible for referring them both to another therapist to repair the damage.”

  “I told you. I stopped therapy the minute I realized—”

  “Baloney. You stopped seeing Rich when he scared you. Up until then you encouraged him, for your own benefit.” She starts to protest. “In case you were wondering, the person Randy confided in, the one who told me what Randy said, is a law enforcement professional. Very credible and comfortable testifying in court.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Her voice is a petulant whine.

  “I wanted you to go to the police, but since you’ve refused, we’ll have to take an indirect route.”

  “What do you mean, an indirect route?”

  “Call Rich, tell him you miss him, and that you want to work things out. Invite him to your apartment and get him to confess.”

  “You don’t believe a word I say. Why would you trust me to do this?”

  “Because I’ll be there, listening to every word and recording everything he says.” There’s a moment of silence. I can hear her breathing.

  “Is that legal?”

  “I don’t know and, frankly, I don’t care. My goal is to get KPD to broaden the focus of their investigation. Look beyond their current suspects. As far as I know, Rich is not even on their radar.”