Loving Time

fourteen

Shrinks were a strange species, April thought. The hospital complex was called the Medical Center, but the psychiatric building was named the Psychiatric Centre. The Centre’s towering marble entrance and vast lobby also insisted people take it seriously. A quick check before April and Mike left the precinct confirmed that both of Raymond Cowles’s shrinks had offices in this intimidating building. It was the kind of place that made cops feel like they came from the reeking lower levels of society’s dung heap.

As soon as Mike was on the other side of the revolving door, he stuck a finger in the collar of his gray shirt and pulled at his shiny silver tie, stretching his neck. He didn’t exactly fit in with the M.D.s of the world. The bulge of his holster was just visible around his left armpit. His sharp clothes and sharp watchfulness, his gleaming black hair, and the bravado in the smile under his abundant mustache didn’t help either.

April shifted her bag from one shoulder to the other, hoping the security guard having an animated conversation with a maintenance man across the wide stone floor would not suddenly realize he’d just let in two people with guns and call the cops. They headed for reception.

“Can you tell me where I could find Dr. Dickey?” Mike asked the pretty woman at the desk.

She gave him a big smile and tossed her mop of curly red hair so that it bounced around. “Dr. Harold Dickey?”

Mike gave her a big smile back. “That would be the one.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

Mike showed her his gold shield. “Of course,” he said.

“Nineteenth.” She handed them visitor passes.

“Thanks.” Mike Sanchez turned away, then swung back. “What about Dr. Treadwell?”

“The Director of the Centre? You have an appointment with her, too?”

Her? Mike’s eyes opened wide as he turned toward the elevators. “Yeah,” he murmured, “her, too.”

Surprised, April touched his sleeve. The woman director of the Centre was the shrink of the dead man?

Mike jerked his head at the guard by the door, who continued his discussion without looking their way. Some security. Also the woman at the desk forgot to tell them they had to check in with the Nursing Supervisor on the third floor to turn in the bullets to their guns. Nobody was allowed to walk around a mental hospital with a loaded gun.

April was troubled by a number of things, not least of which was that Dr. Treadwell was a woman. She had no idea why it bothered her. It occurred to her she might have felt the same distress if the doc were Chinese. One didn’t want trouble for one’s own. April pressed the up button a few times. Then Mike punched it. They looked at each other. With six elevators it seemed to be taking a long time. The crowd grew as they waited. A number of the people waiting were wearing white coats. Others had interesting patterns shaved into their heads, multiple pierces, weird-colored hair, and strange clothing. Mike looked increasingly unhappy.

It took an eternity to get to the third floor, to find the head nurse, give up their bullets, watch them being labeled, bagged, and locked in a filing cabinet. Standing at the elevator a second time, April saw Mike drop two replacement bullets into his pocket, just in case.

It was one-forty by the time they got to the nineteenth floor, and the matronly woman at the desk rang Dr. Dickey’s office to see if he was free.

“Dr. Dickey, two police officers are here to talk to you.” She turned her shoulder to shield the receiver. “No, they didn’t.… Yes, Doctor.”

The receptionist hung up the phone. “Fifth door on the left,” she told them crisply.

Fifth door on the left. April’s lips tightened as she thought of Raymond Cowles with the neatly pleated plastic bag over his head. Ray had had two shrinks. One turned out to be the Director of the most prestigious psychiatric hospital in the city—maybe the whole country—a woman, no less. And the other was who knew what. No one was going to be happy with this case.

The fifth door on the left opened before they got to it. A plump man in a gray suit stood in the doorway, warily watching their approach. His bushy eyebrows and expressive mustache, along with dark eyes that kept moving as if they didn’t intend to miss a thing, dominated his pink-cheeked face. The man was past the midpoint of his life but still radiated a feeling of power and energy as he sprang back into his room and motioned for the two detectives to enter.

“Dr. Dickey,” he said mildly, introducing himself. “How may I help you?” As shrinks often did, Dickey gave the impression of already knowing how he could help them.

“I’m Sergeant Sanchez and this is Detective Woo,” Mike said.

“Is there a problem?” Dickey cocked his head.

“Do you know a man by the name of Raymond Cowles?”

Dickey moved his head over to the other shoulder. Yes, no, maybe so. “Should I?” he asked.

Mike shrugged.

Dickey regarded him coolly. “Why don’t you fill me in on the facts, and we’ll see what I can do to help.”

“Fine. Raymond Cowles was found dead in his apartment this morning.”

Dickey’s bushy eyebrows moved together into a deep frown while his eyes darted back and forth, as if searching for some clarification. “This is not a person I know,” he murmured finally. “I’m puzzled …” He opened his hands questioningly.

The three of them still stood in the small space in front of Dickey’s unimpressive wooden desk. Dickey didn’t ask them to sit down. His hands were open, palms up. “What does this have to do with me?”

“Raymond Cowles wasn’t a patient of yours?” Mike asked.

Dickey shook his head. “No,” he said emphatically.

“You didn’t know him?”

“No.”

“Your name and number were on a notepad beside the body.”

Dickey winced, then shook his head again. “A lot of people know of me. That doesn’t mean I know anything about this. I never met the man.”

“He had your number. Did you speak to him?”

“I never spoke to him.”

“Do you know Dr. Clara Treadwell?”

Dickey’s dark eyes darted from one to the other. “Of course, she’s the Director of the Centre. Is she …?” He flushed.

April kept silent, watching the doctor’s face. She noted that he was cool and reserved, was not concerned enough even to ask how Raymond had died. Then Dr. Treadwell’s name came up and he blushed like a girl.

“What about Dr. Treadwell?” Dickey asked suddenly. “Does she have some involvement with this? What happened? I’d like to know what happened.”

“You didn’t know the deceased?”

“No, but anything that involves the Centre … I’m the chairman of the Quality Assurance Committee.” Dickey drew himself up to the position. “I would have to know …” He smiled engagingly, imploring them to tell.

Mike glanced at April. “Thanks, we’ll get back to you.”

When they left, Dickey followed them out into the hallway. For a second, it almost seemed as if he intended to go upstairs with them to visit the Director. Then abruptly he turned back into his office and softly closed the door.

April made a face. “Why bother to lie? We’ll only find out anyway.” She punched the up button for the elevator. They waited for it.

“Oh, querida, everybody lies. Don’t you know that yet?”

At two P.M. the two cops stepped out of the elevator on the twentieth floor. They studied the empty hall. In only minutes, they’d traveled a long way from the unadorned academic offices on the nineteenth floor. Here, an expensive patterned carpet covered the floor, a warm beige paint job and horsey prints decorated the walls. Straight ahead, oversized mahogany doors marked the entrance to the executive suite.

Uneasily, Mike and April walked through the doors. Inside, the reception desk was vacant. So were the upholstered chairs and sofa. The reception area looked like a living room. Around it a number of smaller mahogany doors were open or closed on more living room-like offices.

Before Mike and April had time to consider making a move, a thin dapper man in an expensive-looking gray suit and a red-and-white polka-dot bow tie appeared in one of the doorways and sauntered toward them. A small inquisitive smile was painted on his sculpted, upper-class face.

“Is there some way I may be of assistance?” He spoke with the assurance of a man who was sure he could.

Mike took out his ID. “We’re here to see Dr. Treadwell.”

The man’s small smile did not waver as he examined the ID. “I’m Dr. Goodrich, Vice Chairman of the hospital. You may tell me what your business is here. I’m sure I can help you.” A look of concern replaced the smile.

“This is something that concerns Dr. Treadwell personally.”

“Anything relating to the hospital also concerns me.” After a few seconds of awkward silence, Goodrich smiled again.

“We have no reason to believe at this time that the matter we’ve come about is related to the hospital.” Mike smiled, too.

April hated standing there with her mouth shut while two men acted like jerks. She cleared her throat. “Would you tell Dr. Treadwell we need to inform her of a death? I think she would agree that it would be better for her to discuss it with us now than read about it in the newspaper tomorrow.”

Dr. Goodrich’s pale face reddened. “Can you tell me who it is, so I can warn Dr. Treadwell?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

“Wait here. I’ll see if I can interrupt Dr. Treadwell.”

Goodrich turned and rushed headlong to the central closed door. In a moment he was back, closing the door silently behind him. “She’ll be with you very shortly. Come this way.” He led them to the closed door on the right, opened it, and ushered them into a large corner office with striking views of the Hudson River and the New Jersey Palisades.

He indicated two chairs in front of a huge desk with drawers on the wrong side. “You may sit down.”

“Thank you.”

Mike and April remained standing. April noted that Dr. Treadwell’s office was about double the size of the detective squad room in the Two-O, which contained nine desks and a holding cell.

Almost instantly, the connecting door to the next room opened. No one would mistake the dark-haired woman who entered for a secretary. She wore a close-fitting navy suit that was striking in its simplicity. The skirt was cut just above the knee. A printed chiffon scarf of subtle earth and winey tones was tucked into the space where two buttons were open at the neck. Her stockings and high-heeled shoes were a subtle match to one of the burgundies in the scarf.

But the suit told only half the story. The other half was projected in the authority of her walk on nice slender legs, her flawless makeup, the comma of her dark hair. April was impressed. This woman looked very young to have such a high position.

“I’m Dr. Treadwell,” she told them in a soft voice.

“Sergeant Sanchez and Detective Woo,” Mike murmured.

The doctor glanced from one to the other and sat down at her desk. Her second-in-command with the fading blond hair and exemplary cheekbones didn’t have to be told what to do. He had retreated to the door and left without saying good-bye.

“You have some information?” Dr. Treadwell said.

“We found the body of Raymond Cowles in his apartment this morning,” Mike told her.

The sharp intake of Dr. Treadwell’s breath drew some saliva down the wrong tube. She began coughing.

“Would you like some water?” April asked, thinking this was the second woman today to gag over the death of Raymond Cowles.

Dr. Treadwell raised her hand, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. This is a shock.… ”

“Take your time. I can imagine it must be very difficult to lose a patient like this,” Mike said.

Dr. Treadwell frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“The wife of the deceased told us you were his psychiatrist.”

Clara Treadwell shivered. Her tufted leather chair swung around toward the window. When the chair swung back, her face was composed. She reached into a drawer of her desk, brought out a pocket-size tape recorder, placed it in the middle of her desk.

“Please sit down and tell me what happened.” She indicated the two chairs opposite her.

April glanced at Mike. He smiled at her, inclining his head toward the tape recorder. They sat.

“November first. I’m with Sergeant Sanchez and Detective Woo,” Dr. Treadwell said, her eyes on Mike. “I’d like to establish a record, if you don’t mind, Sergeant.”

The thing was voice-activated. Dr. Treadwell did not touch it. Mike lifted his shoulders in a small shrug. He scratched the ear that had been burned the worst in the explosion last spring. This sure was a switch. Usually they put the tape recorder on the desk and did the interviewing.

“Sergeant, you may begin now.”

Mike said, “At ten-thirty this morning we received a call from Mrs. Cowles.”

Mike told Dr. Treadwell as much as he felt she needed to know, which wasn’t much. He held a lot of information back for a later date. The doctor stopped him from time to time for clarification, as her colleague, Dr. Dickey, had done. But Mike wasn’t telling any more than he absolutely had to. They didn’t have the autopsy yet, didn’t know the cause of death.

As he spoke, Dr. Treadwell’s hand flew up to her eyes, stretching her fingers to cover them both. To April, a person’s eyes were the doors of knowledge. Between the eyes was the pathway to the soul. Dr. Treadwell’s stretched fingers between knowledge and soul could not shield her deep distress from April’s view. The Centre’s director’s face could be blank, but never so deeply blank as those of Asians, who had a much longer history of save the face or lose the neck. What April saw behind Dr. Treadwell’s fingers was fear, just as, earlier, April had seen fear in the widow. What was it about the deceased that scared these women so much?

When Mike stopped talking, Dr. Treadwell dropped her hand to the table. Now the eyes were open and sincere in the front, and closed only from behind.

“I want to cooperate with the police in every way,” she told them.

“Thank you. That will make things easier.” Mike smiled.

Dr. Treadwell went on. “But I’m a little uncertain what I’m at liberty to reveal in a matter like this … the ethics of confidentiality … I’ll have to consult a lawyer.”

That was it. Interview over. April glanced at Mike.

“The deceased was your patient,” he said.

Dr. Treadwell shook her head. “Not at the time of his death. As Director of the Centre, I can’t take private patients. Ray Cowles was a patient of mine, years ago. Over a decade ago—more like eighteen years to be exact—”

Abruptly, the doctor stopped talking. She picked up the tape recorder and turned it around in her hand. “I’m very saddened by Ray’s death, Sergeant. Thank you for telling me.”

Dr. Treadwell gave the two detectives a small, saddened smile and pushed the button to stop the recording. April was right. At the mention of the lawyer, the interview was over. They were dismissed.