LuAnne rose, shaking her head.
“The car ride will be fun, LuAnne. If you like, I’ll ask them to put on their lights and siren.”
This made LuAnne smile. She nodded her head with a childlike enthusiasm. The detective gestured toward the pair of uniformed cops and said, “Guys, give our witness here the red-carpet treatment. Lights and action all the way, okay?”
Both officers shrugged, smiling. This was easy duty, and they had no complaints, as long as LuAnne was in and out of their vehicle rapidly enough so that the pungent odor of sweat, grime, and infection that she carried with her like a perfume wouldn’t linger behind.
Ricky watched as the deranged woman, nodding and speaking to herself again, shuffled off toward the exit with the policemen. He turned and saw that Detective Riggins was watching her departure as well. The policewoman sighed. “She’s not nearly as bad off as some,” she said. “And she stays pretty local. Either behind the bodega on 97th Street, in the station where she was today, or up at the entrance to Riverside Park on 96th. I mean, she’s crazy and way out there, but not nasty about it, like some. I wonder who she really is. You think, doctor, maybe there’s someone somewhere worrying about her? Out in Cincinnati or Minneapolis. Family, friends, relatives wondering whatever became of their eccentric aunt or cousin. Maybe she’s an heiress to some oil fortune, or a lottery winner. That would be kinda neat, huh? Wonder what happened to her to have her end up like this. All those crazy little chemicals in the brain just bubbling out of control. But that’s more your territory, not mine.”
“I’m not really big on medications,” Ricky said. “Not like some of my colleagues. A schizophrenia as profound as hers genuinely needs medication, but what I do probably wouldn’t help LuAnne all that much.”
Detective Riggins motioned him toward her desk, which had a chair pulled up beside it. They walked across the room together. “You’re into talking, huh? The troubled articulate, huh? All that talk, talk, talk, and sooner or later it all gets figured out?”
“That would be an oversimplification, detective. But not inaccurate.”
“I had a sister who saw a therapist after her divorce. It really helped her get her life straightened out. On the other hand, my cousin Marcie who’s one of those types always got that black cloud over her head-she saw some guy for three years and ended up more authentically fucked-up than before she got started.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Like any profession, there are wide degrees of competency.” Ricky and the detective sat down at the desk. “But-”
Detective Riggins cut him off before he could get further with his question. “You said you were Mr. Zimmerman’s therapist, correct?”
She pulled out a notepad and pencil.
“Yes. He’d been in analysis during this past year. But…”
“And did you detect any heightened suicidal tendencies in the last couple of weeks?”
“No. Absolutely not,” Ricky said with determination.
The detective raised her eyebrows in modest surprise. “Really, no? None whatsoever?”
“That’s what I just said,” Ricky replied. “In fact…”
“He was making progress in his analysis, then?”
Ricky hesitated.
“Well?” the detective asked abruptly. “Was he getting better? Gaining control? Feeling more confident? More ready to take on the world? Less depressed? Less angry?”
Again, Ricky paused, before replying. “I would say that he had not made what either you or I would consider a breakthrough. He was still struggling deeply with the issues that plagued his life.”
Detective Riggins smiled, but without humor. Her words had an edgy tone. “So, after almost a year of near-constant treatment, fifty minutes per day, five days per week-what, forty-eight weeks per year-it would be safe to say that he was still depressed and frustrated by his life?”
Ricky bit down on his lip briefly, then nodded.
Detective Riggins wrote a few words down on her pad. Ricky could not see what she scribbled. “Would despair be too strong a word?”
“Yes,” Ricky said with irritation.
“Even if that was the first word that his mother, whom he lived with, used? And the same word that several of his coworkers came up with?”
“Yes,” Ricky insisted.
“So, you don’t think he was suicidal?”
“I told you, detective. He didn’t present with any of the classic symptomology. Had he, I would have taken steps…”
“What sort of steps?”
“We would have tried to focus the sessions more specifically. Perhaps medication, if I actually thought the threat was sincere…”
“I thought you just said you didn’t like prescribing pills?”
“I don’t, but…”
“Aren’t you going on vacation? Like real soon?”
“Yes. Tomorrow, at least I’m scheduled to begin, but what has that…”
“So, as of tomorrow, his therapeutic lifeline was going on vacation?”
“Yes, but I fail to see…”
The detective smiled. “Those are interesting words for a shrink to use.”
“What words?” Ricky asked, his exasperation reaching deep within him.
“‘Fail to see…,’ ” Detective Riggins said. “Isn’t that pretty close to what you guys like to call a Freudian slip?”
“No.”
“So, you just don’t think he committed suicide?”
“No, I do not. I just…”
“Have you ever lost a patient to suicide in the past?”
“Yes. Unfortunately. But in that case the signs were clear-cut. My efforts, however, weren’t adequate for the depth of that patient’s depression.”
“That failure stick with you for a while, doc?”
“Yes,” Ricky replied coldly.
“It would be bad for your business and real bad for your reputation if another one of your long-term patients decided to take on the Eighth Avenue express one-on-one, wouldn’t it?”
Ricky rocked back in the chair, scowling.
“I don’t appreciate the implication in your question, detective.”
Riggins smiled, shaking her head slightly. “Well, let’s move on, then. If you don’t think he killed himself, the alternative is that someone pushed him in front of that train. Did Mr. Zimmerman ever speak about anyone who hated him, or who bore a grudge, or who might have a motive for homicide? He spoke to you every day, so presumably if he was being stalked by some unknown killer he might have mentioned it. Did he?”
“No. He never mentioned anyone who would fit the categories you suggest.”
“He never said, ‘So and so wants me dead… ‘?”
“No.”
“And you’d remember if he had?”
“Of course.”
“Okay, so no one real obvious was trying to do him in. No business partner? Estranged lover? Cuckolded husband? You think someone might have pushed him in front of the express for what? Kicks? Some other mysterious reason?”
Ricky hesitated. He realized this was his opportunity to tell the police about the letter demanding he kill himself, the visit from the naked woman Virgil, the game he was being asked to play. All he had to do was to say that a crime had been committed, and that Zimmerman was a victim of an act that had nothing to do with him except his death. Ricky half opened his mouth to blurt out all these details, to let them flow forth unchecked, but what he saw instead was a bored and barely interested detective, seeking to wrap up an altogether unpleasant day with a single typewritten form which wouldn’t contain a category for the information he was about to deliver.
He decided, in that second, to keep his own counsel. This was his psychoanalyst’s nature. He did not share speculation or opinion easily or publicly. “Perhaps,” he said. “What do you know about this other woman? The woman who gave LuAnne the ten dollars?”
The detective wrinkled her forehead, as if confused by the question. “Well, what about her?”
“Isn’t her behavior in the slightest bit suspicious? Didn’t it seem that she was putting words into LuAnne’s mouth?”