Hanging Time

52

By nine-thirty Jason was exhausted and overstimulated. He had returned from California only the night before, had seen ten patients that day, one of whom ended up at the police station accusing her sister of murder. All through his session with his last patient, the conversation with Milicia played over and over in Jason’s mind. He didn’t want to think about it. He had other things to think about.

When he returned home, he lingered in the kitchen debating whether to ratchet down with a beer or a martini with three olives. He’d have a drink, think about Emma and California. Later, he’d read a book.

He decided on the martini, built it, threw a frozen pizza in the toaster oven, and took his first burning swallow. Yes. Alcohol helped. He grabbed three more olives from the jar and savored the salty taste. Glass in hand, he wandered into the living room, thinking about making love to his wife. He concentrated on that, didn’t want to crash with the weight of being alone again.

Sipping the martini slowly, he told himself this was okay. He didn’t have to have a wife with him every second. They could live together sometimes. He tried to walk around a little with that conviction.

But underneath it all the Milicia tape played on and on. Her voice calling him silly, talking baby talk about monsters in the shadows, clicked on without his bidding.

What did you tell them? Tell me exactly what you said.

He turned on the television and listened to the weather report, couldn’t pay attention, and turned it off. He was trained to look at time sequences for branch points without making judgments or conclusions.

At every fork in the tree he asked himself what was going on. Why did she say “We have to be together on this”?

Why was she worried about what he told the police? Why did she pretend not to know what he’d said?

He wandered around the living room, picking up one book after another, trying to unwind. He wanted to stay with Emma, think about her. Read a book. But the more he tried to escape, the harder it was to get away from Milicia and Camille.

Against his will Jason had been drawn deep into their story. That bothered him. He was a quick study. He could put together any number of disparate elements of personality and character almost from the very start. It wasn’t like him not to be able to come to a conclusion right away.

It occurred to him that maybe the reason he couldn’t get it this time was that Milicia was lying about something. He reviewed how she had started with him. Bits and pieces about the day in the Hamptons, the ride home in her car. How she had asked to see him. Her calls when he was in California. It was all unusual, ambiguous. Nothing in this life was truly random.

He turned away from the books, looking for another diversionary tactic. He had to calm down or he wouldn’t get to sleep that night. He didn’t want murder hanging over his dreams.

The martini was almost gone. He decided to have another. The phone on the table rang. He picked up on the first ring, hoping it was Emma.

“Hello, Jason?”

He sighed. It was April the detective. Now she was calling him Jason. Earlier that day she’d called him Dr. Frank. He couldn’t help smiling. He knew if she was calling him by his first name, she wanted something.

“Hello, April.”

“It’s nine-thirty. Am I getting you in the middle of dinner?”

Jason jerked his head toward the kitchen, suddenly remembering the pizza in the toaster oven. Shit. “No, I haven’t had it yet.”

“Ah. Then you’re probably sitting there with a gin martini. May or may not have olives in it.”

“Yes, gin martini, and yes, it has olives.” He looked down at the glass. Had olives. It was empty now.

“You’re unwinding after a long day of patients. Am I right?”

“Yes, again.” He wouldn’t mind a few more martinis so he could unwind further. He had a strong suspicion by the way she was talking to him that he wasn’t going to get them.

“It’s really nice to chat with you, April. But I have this really uneasy feeling you’re not calling to chat. And I don’t really feel like chatting right now anyway. Am I right?”

“You’re right. Something’s come up that’s a quasi-emergency—well, it’s not the Twin Towers blowing up, or anything like that. But I need some input about a medical problem I have here at the precinct this minute.…” Her voice trailed off.

Jason heard some noise in the background. He knew this call was about the Honiger-Stanton sisters. April wouldn’t bother him about anything else. The karma must be bad for his getting away from those women tonight.

He had been committed to clearing his mind and getting into a quiet place where he could refresh himself. Now a wave of nausea swept over him at the thought of having to gear up again so late in the day. The smell of burning pizza drifted out of the kitchen. Shit.

“Hold on for a second, will you.” Jason put down the phone and charged across the hall.

In the kitchen, black smoke spewed out of the toaster oven. Shit. Inadvertently he thought of the burning house where Emma had been held in Queens. Thick clouds of reeking smoke jetting up into the sky. Rubble everywhere. Talking to April Woo must have triggered the association. Shit.

He burned himself yanking the small metal tray out of the oven. Tonight wasn’t turning out to be so great. He raced back into the living room.

“You still there?” he said breathlessly.

“You okay?”

“Sure.” Just depressed and anxious and starving. It was clear he was going to lose sleep over this and feel rotten through all ten patients scheduled for the next day. He studied the burn on his left index finger.

“You were telling me the Twin Towers are not the reason for this call.”

“Yeah. This is the thing. I have your patient’s sister here as kind of a suspect in a homicide investigation. You with me?”

“Of course.”

“And this woman does fit the description we have of the murderer.”

“Really?” Jason was appalled.

“Yeah, well, but there’s something odd.… She’s—ah, bizarre, to put it mildly. We need a psychiatric evaluation of her to determine what to do with her. At the moment we’re getting a warrant to search the house where she lives and there’s a BOLO out on her boyfriend.”

“You lost me.” Jason shifted the phone to his other ear. “What’s the connection between this woman and the murder—murders—and what’s a BOLO?”

“She has a dog. Similar-colored dog hairs were found on the first murder victim. She has red hair. Several red human hairs were found on the dress the victim was wearing. Bruises on the neck and shoulders of the first victim show the woman we have here is the right height to have caused them. She lives across the street from where the second victim died. We don’t have anything yet on the second homicide. You still with me?”

“Sort of. What’s a BOLO?” he repeated.

“Be on the lookout. Guy drives a Mercedes. We’re trying to locate him.”

Jason swallowed, frowning. He tried to remember what was in the paper about the murders. Not a lot. “They were hung?”

“Strangled, garotted, then hung.”

“Not exactly a woman’s crime,” Jason murmured.

“Look, I have this feeling—”

“What’s your feeling?”

“It’s like this woman makes me feel weird when I talk to her, but I don’t feel frightened. Does that make sense?”

“What does weird mean?”

“Ah, like stepping off the curb and there’s no street there. I don’t feel any human connection with her. She, like, bites herself, growls.”

“What about her eyes? Does she stare? Are her eyes very wide open? Does she seem super vigilant, afraid of having anything behind her?”

“I don’t think so—she’s creepy.”

“Do you get the feeling she’s a cat, that she could strike like a panther?”

“No. I’m not an expert, Jason. It’s only my intuition. But I get the feeling she’s a very disturbed, brittle person. She’s frightening, but only because of the way she acts. It’s kind of like you’re trying to soothe somebody and they vomit on you. You’re horrified, but not frightened for your safety. You see what I mean?”

“Yes, I know what you mean. She’s creepy, but you don’t think she’s dangerous. What do you need?”

“Well, this is the thing. We not getting very far in our questioning of her. We brought this woman in. Now we’re liable for her, responsible for her safety. We can’t let her loose and we can’t hold her. We need a psychiatric interview, and it would be great if we could also get some further information about the murder.”

“What’s your normal procedure in a case like this?”

“That’s the thing. Usually I’d take her to the emergency room at Bellevue and they’d bring in a psych team. At this hour they’d be residents. It’s a very inhuman thing. I don’t like to say this, ’cause they mean well. But it’s very unlikely such an interview would lead to any important information for our investigation. And I hate to go there.”

Jason could understand that. He was quiet, trying to control his nausea at the prospect of doing such an interview at this hour. He asked himself if there was anything illegal or unethical about it. He was being called in as a consultant. He decided there was not. Milicia was his patient, and she had already asked him to see her sister. And now it was a murder investigation. That changed things.

“How do you like Chinese food?”

“I love it.” He also liked her. “You want me to come down to the precinct now, is that it? And talk to her there?”

“I’ll, uh, cook you a Chinese dinner, buy you a bottle of gin, a book on Freud. Or all three if you do this huge favor for me.”

April Woo didn’t say that he owed her for saving Emma’s life. Or that he was responsible for the woman’s being there in the first place. She was a clever girl. She didn’t have to say anything like that. He sighed softly.

“I’m on my way,” he told her.