It stopped and turned around to look at Camille questioningly. Its mouth was open in what appeared to be a smile.
“Oh, my God, it’s smiling,” April muttered. “Have you ever busted a dog?”
“No, have you?”
“Not exactly an everyday thing.”
They were silent, watching the woman. She did not move from the front of the building. The dog raced back to her, then ran down the sidewalk the other way, until the leash ran out just before the corner where April and Mike were parked.
“Cute,” Mike muttered.
“Yeah, but what is it? Accessory to murder? Witness to murder?”
“All of the above. But it doesn’t look like it’s going to tell us about it.”
“We don’t know what Ducci will turn up from this one.” April jerked her head toward the crime scene where they’d spent the better part of the day.
The store where Rachel Stark died was almost directly across the street. Some of the yellow tapes that had sealed off the sidewalk in front of European Imports earlier were still stuck on a tree. They were still in place all over the front of the shop.
Camille Honiger-Stanton didn’t seem to be aware of them. Her attention was focused on the dog, now racing for the street.
“We’ll have to pick it up. It appears to be evidence.”
They were both silent again, thinking their own thoughts about how Lieutenant Braun would handle this suspect and her canine accomplice. April could see how the dog could work to win over a victim, make a murderer welcome anywhere. She remembered that the Boston Strangler had gotten into his victims’ apartments by mewing like a cat.
“Ohhh shit.” Mike stiffened in his seat.
Finally the woman felt it was safe to move. She strolled toward the opposite corner, where Lieutenant Braun and Sergeant Roberts were returning from their dinner.
47
Jason checked the clock as Milicia gathered up her things. His face was rigid. She was taking a lot of time to get organized. He willed himself to appear relaxed and neutral at her resistance to leaving. Daisy was Jason’s next patient. He hoped she and Milicia wouldn’t meet in the waiting room. Daisy would be disturbed by Milicia.
Finally Milicia was on her feet, but she wasn’t happy. Only seconds before she had been calm, as if a great pressure inside her had finally eased. Now she was hurt and angry again because Jason wouldn’t drop everything and take care of her now that he understood the true nature of her crisis. She felt he had tricked her into going to the police alone. She was furious, but there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. Daisy was probably sitting in his waiting room already, and she was by no means his last patient.
He glanced down at his appointment book. Tuesdays he had patients until eight-thirty at night. The only thing that would stop him from seeing them was an actual medical emergency. One of them getting shot or hit by a bus. A suicide crisis. An accident where blood was flowing all over the ground. Nothing else.
Once a very sick patient he was visiting in the hospital became suicidal during the visit. Jason had stayed at the hospital until the patient was stabilized. He got back to his office an hour and a half later. While he was gone, the patient whose session he missed had become hysterical waiting outside his locked office door, knocking and getting no answer.
He had planned to come right back, had left the lights and the radio on in the office. The patient, a woman, saw the crack of light under the door and heard the radio. She fantasized that Jason was in there, had had a heart attack, and would die if the doorman didn’t break down the door to save him. The doorman wouldn’t do it. A male patient confronted by a locked door would probably have shrugged and left. But his woman patient never really felt safe with him after that.
Jason watched Milicia turning things over in her mind. How she would handle this apparent betrayal on his part, how she would manage the police. Jason was intensely aware in those moments that he didn’t fully understand this situation, had no idea what was really going on.
There are so many levels to the relationship between psychiatrist and patient, so many secret recesses of the mind where events and feelings were processed but never fully explored no matter how many hours are scheduled.
Jason knew most people couldn’t make connections between things, and even when they could, human communication was an iffy undertaking at best. From the first moment he saw her, Jason knew Milicia was not like anyone else. It was more than her extraordinary presence. He couldn’t place her, couldn’t define her, wasn’t sure of her purpose, her character. His method was always to let the patient inform him of these things. But every time he saw or spoke to Milicia, something totally unexpected came out of left field. This was an uncommon thing. Very rarely did he remain perplexed for very long. With Milicia he had been perplexed ten whole days. That was as long as he had known her.
In psychiatric time ten days was nothing. Jason kept wondering if there was something he should have picked up right away from the very incomplete picture Milicia gave him when they met the first and second times.
He had a feeling of helplessness as she left the office. It was another one of those occupational hazards that went with being a shrink. He couldn’t be with his patients when they made their actions. He couldn’t stop them or help them, or rewrite the story as it was happening. He could only discuss it with them afterward.
Milicia walked out of his office to talk to the police about murder. Jason knew the procedure because he had been there, knew the precinct, knew how the detectives, particularly April Woo, would deal with her. He was deeply involved and yet he had to miss it.
Daisy came into the waiting room. Jason had heard the door open and close. Daisy was always difficult, a challenge.
He nodded at Milicia as she went out the door. She didn’t look back. If she didn’t call him to tell him what happened, he wouldn’t call her. April would no doubt fill him in.
The brass bull clock on his bookshelf hit the quarter hour with a tiny click. He waited until he was certain Milicia was gone, then came out of his office, prepared for Daisy, smiling slightly and looking as if nothing important had happened to him in a long time.
48
Braun sauntered up Second Avenue, in no hurry now, though he had grabbed only twenty minutes for his hamburger. April watched him unwrap a stick of gum and fold it into his mouth as he stepped up on the curb at the corner. The suspect’s tiny dog ran over to greet him, sniffing at his cuff. Camille quickly jerked the dog away. Braun shook out the crease in his pants, chewing, while his mouth tried for a smile.
He passed Camille. Slowly it occurred to him. His head turned. On his second take he sought guidance from Sanchez and Woo, sitting in the unmarked car as they had been ordered to. Braun looked at them and cocked his head behind him at the tall redhead now crossing the street with the little dog.
Is that the suspect?
Mike and April kept their faces neutral, unwilling to commit on yea or nay to such a jerk.
Lieutenant Braun decided it without their prompting, spun around, and ran back to her. Roberts followed.
“Shit,” Mike muttered.
Braun and Roberts approached the suspect like a freight train racing at full throttle. They blocked her front and back. Braun shoved his badge in her face. She cried out, reeling back.
“No! Don’t touch me.” She reached down to pick up the dog, then tried to get back to her front door. She didn’t get there.
Sergeant Roberts’s arm snaked out to stop her from resisting an officer. The suspect panicked and started screaming. April shook her head as the two men subdued her and put her in their car. Before they pulled away, Braun made a sign for Sanchez and Woo to remain where they were until further notice.