Loving Time

eighteen

Clara Treadwell did not instantly engage the Psychiatric Centre’s legal machinery. She detested the hospital’s general counsel, Ben Hartley, and decided she would not worry, or take any steps about the Cowles situation until there was an autopsy report determining his cause of death. By her last meeting of the day, however, she was too impatient to endure any more aimless debate about trivial matters. She walked out.

Recently, her span of attention had begun to vary quite a bit. In Washington, where the issues were big ones and the players big-league players, she was alert and fully engaged every second. But in the smaller arena of hospital and university life, the endless round of meetings about hospital departmental problems made her New York life seem routine, almost small-time. The petty politics of the individuals involved, each clinging so desperately to his own little sliver of the power pie, took up a lot of time. The system was an old one, unreformed and clogged with personal agendas. Instead of looking forward to the massive challenges of the new century, psychiatry seemed to be scuttling sideways like a crab, scared and on the defensive. One in ten psychiatrists was involved in a malpractice suit. Insurance companies had cut their payments so far back, they were subsidizing only fifteen days of managed care whether the patient had a food disorder, was a substance abuser, paranoid schizophrenic, or sociopath. Chronic illnesses couldn’t be cured by fifteen days in the hospital, but no one was listening. No one cared.

As for therapy, insurance companies were demanding the psyche be treated the same way allergies and heart disease were. They expected pathology to be managed chemically, or surgically removed with a few intensive sessions of dynamic psychotherapy. Psychiatrists scrambled for faster and faster ways to do their work. It was like walking back in time to when only the rich could afford mental illness. It was small wonder that Clara Treadwell felt better in the intoxicating air of Washington, where power was an alcoholic kick that had no hangover.

Today, at 5:45, she slipped out into the soggy dusk and headed the one block home. Gratefully, she found her apartment as she had left it—large, beautifully decorated in an understated way, everything in its place. Only now it smelled of furniture polish and the flower arrangement that came from the florist every Monday. This week it was an unusual combination of blue irises, orange lilies, and some white and pale green blossoms in lilaclike bunches that Clara had never seen before. The arrangement had been unwrapped by the cleaning lady and placed on the butler’s tray in the living room. Clara detoured into the living room to smell them. The lilies had a strong aroma, but the white blossoms were not lilacs. They had no perfume.

The rain had stopped hours ago. Now, high above Riverside Drive, it was quiet and serene. Clara moved quickly into the bedroom and played back the messages on her answering machine. Her lover, Arch Candel, the Senator from Florida, had called her three times in her office that day and twice at her home since five P.M. The two messages on the machine told her the same thing: Arch had a free moment and wanted to connect before the evening began. The machine played on, running back through the messages from the week before and the weekend that had not been erased or taped over. She waited for messages from Raymond Cowles, found one from a week before, and erased it. Then she shut the machine off and retraced her steps to the living room, where she poured herself some vodka and opened a can of tomato juice from the drink cart.

Finally she headed for the bath, her cordless phone in one hand and the lifeless bloody Mary in the other. She put the drink down on the side of the tub, dumped some bath salts into the tub, then dialed the phone and turned on the water at the same time.

“Senator Candel’s office.”

“Oh, it’s Dr. Treadwell, returning his call.” Clara wandered back into her bedroom and began stripping off her clothes.

“Oh, Dr. Treadwell. The Senator’s in the car. Are you at home? I’ll have him call you on the car phone.”

“Yes, I’m at home for”—she glanced at the gold watch that had been a gift from her second husband—“forty-five minutes.”

“Fine. I’ll let him know.”

“Thanks.” Clara hopped to get out of her skirt and panty hose, tossed her pink silk bra on the expensive heap she’d made of her clothes on her bed. Naked, she took the phone with her and padded into the bathroom, where the bathtub was almost full. When she sank into the hot, fragrant water, she groaned with pleasure.

Not five minutes into her watery retreat, Clara thought she heard the doorbell ring. She was up to her neck in bubbles, talking on her portable phone to Arch in his limo in Washington. She sat up, shivering at the sudden change of temperature. Then she sank back again, telling herself no one could get past the doorman. She tried to relax and listen to what Arch was telling her, to respond appropriately to his account of his day. He liked to stay in constant touch, liked to talk.

The bell rang again.

“Listen, darling. Someone’s at the door. I have to go.”

“Who?”

“I have no idea. I’ll go check.”

“Well, come right back, darlin’. I’m worried about you.”

“There’s nothing to worry about. I’m fine.”

“Call me anyway. I’m worried about you.”

Arch’s voice had the camouflaging southern softness that always impressed Clara. She liked southern men. They had that studied gentleness, taught from the cradle, that was relentlessly soothing on the surface without in any way concealing the rifle on the rack in the back of the truck, the pistol in the cupboard, in the drawer of the night table. It never failed to turn her on.

“Maybe you need some help.”

She smiled in her scented bath. Every time she told Arch about a problem, he wanted to send someone in from Washington—the CIA, the FBI, the Justice Department—somebody big, to help her out.

“Thanks, baby,” she murmured. “But I told you a long time ago that I can take care of myself just fine.”

“And I told you, I could take care of you much better.”

Clara Treadwell believed it was always necessary to have a powerful man in her life: One never knew what kind of assistance one was going to need down the road. But this kind of talk made her wary. Arch was very possessive. He liked being in control. She suspected he already had someone keeping an eye on her. That didn’t exactly worry her, but she wouldn’t be able to tolerate it for long.

The doorbell rang again, more insistently now.

“I’ve got to go.”

Reluctantly she climbed out of the tub, grabbing her thick white terry-cloth robe. Dripping, she wrapped it around her and headed out to the entrance. Through the peephole she saw Harold Dickey in his ancient Burberry raincoat standing at her door.

She opened the door a crack. “What are you doing here?”

“Ask me in, Clara.”

“I was in the bath, Hal.”

“Is that where you were waiting for me?” He smiled the old smile as if they were lovers still and nothing had changed.

“What?” Her scalp tingled. The wet tendrils of hair on her neck felt like ice. Since when had old Harold Dickey started giving her the creeps?

“You asked me over for a drink before the meeting. I’m here. Aren’t you going to let me in?” Harold still smiled the old smile.

Clara knew she hadn’t done that. She’d never have him here alone. She didn’t exactly feel any pressure on the door. But almost immediately it was wide open, and Harold was inside. They were standing in the foyer of her new life face-to-face, she in a robe he’d seen before and he in the raincoat that had been a joke between them eighteen years ago. She’d forgotten how deep and powerful the relationship between them had been. Student and teacher, lover and lover. Now she stepped back involuntarily, shocked that the past seemed to be breathing on her, still very much alive.

“Lovely home,” Harold was saying. “I don’t get to see it as often as I’d like, or even as often as I used to. You smell good. Same bubble bath?”

Clara pulled the robe tighter. Her fingers traveled up to the wet underlayer of hair clinging to her neck. She had always chosen her lovers so carefully—independent males with powerful egos who were just as happy to move on to other pastures as stick around with her. If they behaved well after it was over, she retained a warm feeling for them. If not, she cut them off. Life was too short for turmoil. But this was an old, old lover, and he had picked her, not the other way around.

“Hal, how did you get up here?”

He studied her face admiringly. “Lawrence was a close friend of mine, in case you’ve forgotten, Clara. I believe he was instrumental in getting you that first—”

“I remember.”

“I told Tom I was expected. You know Tom, don’t you? I thought I was expected.” Harold took off his old raincoat and dropped it on a stool.

Tom was her doorman. Of course, he’d know Harold from the old days. The tic throbbed in Clara’s cheek: Tom would be hearing from her about this. No visitors without her permission meant no visitors.

Harold stopped in the center of her living room and shook his head, admiring this, too. “Nice place. You’ve made it warmer and more inviting, of course.… You’ve certainly come up in the world, Clara.”

“Do you have a problem with it, old friend?” Clara asked, feeling more secure now, and finally smiling a little.

The older Texan gentleman of sixty-something, with his nondescript suit, thickened waist, and white, white hair demurred convincingly. “No, no. I’m proud of you at the head of the table. You’re the mommy of us all, and you do it very well, Clara.”

But he was the daddy no more. Maybe he couldn’t handle it. “You really mean that?” she asked. Did anybody ever mean anything?

“Of course I mean it. I’m absolutely bursting with pride in you, you know that.”

Clara had heard those words from him before. Years ago, they’d fed and fired her. Now they warmed her more than her hot bath. She realized he could still make her hold her breath. For a second, she tried to look deep inside him to see if what he said was true. He appeared admiring and full of pride. She decided she could handle him alone.

“I’m glad, because it’s taken a long time, Harold, and I’ve worked very hard to get here.… Look, why don’t you help yourself to a drink while I get dressed.”

He nodded. “Thanks.”

Clara wandered back into her room, where her navy suit was a mess on the bed. She decided to change her underwear and put the suit back on. When she returned to the living room, Harold sat in the wing chair by the fireplace that had no fire in it, sipping scotch with no ice. She sat in the chair opposite. She’d give him five minutes and no more.

“So, what’s happening with you, Harold?” she said softly.

“Is it unusual for old friends to meet, spend time together?” Harold cocked his head, trying to look jaunty and not nearly as old as he was.

“It is when they haven’t been close in many years. There’s been a lot of water under the bridge since—”

“Of course the water is always flowing, Clara; but when two people were as close as we were, some things don’t change. I still care about you. I still worry about you. There’s not a lot I don’t know about what’s going on here. I could help you.”

“I don’t need help.”

“That isn’t what you used to say.” Harold smiled.

“I’ve changed.”

Harold shook his head. “No, Clara, you still need my help. I can still make things go right for you if you’ll let me.”

Clara made a noise.

“Don’t scoff at me,” he said sharply.

“I wasn’t scoffing.” She stared at him coldly. He had a lot of nerve making trouble for her, then offering to fix it.

“I hear you had a visit from the police today.” He changed the subject and took a sip of his drink.

She nodded, her face tight. “Who told you?”

“I had one, too.”

“You did?” Clara was appalled.

“Didn’t the two detectives tell you they … uh, interviewed me first?”

“What did you tell them?”

“What do you think?”

“Don’t play games with me, Hal. I have no idea what you told them.”

“Do you know why they visited me first?”

“No.”

“Oh, baby, don’t play games with me, either.”

“I’m not playing games with you. I don’t know what’s going on. They didn’t tell me.”

“What have you been up to, Clara?” Hal was irritatingly serene. “Why would that young man commit suicide? Did you seduce him, too?”

“Jesus, Harold, don’t get on my case about this. I don’t sleep with my patients.”

He shrugged. “If you say so.”

“I don’t sleep with my patients!” she hissed. “That’s a horrible thing to say. How could you suggest such a wicked thing?”

“It happens. It’s unethical, but it happens. Occasionally one even commits suicide.… ”

“Hal, I get the feeling you’re threatening me.”

“You’re in trouble. You need help. I’ll help you.” He shrugged again. “It’s not a hard one. I’ll conduct the review for you. We could spend some evenings going over it, maybe take a weekend.… I’m sure the Quality Assurance Committee will—”

“Harold, no! You’re the last person in the world who could review this case. You were my supervisor.”

He smiled. “It went very well, as I remember.”

“You know perfectly well I can’t be held responsible for anything that happens to a patient fourteen years after I stopped treating him.”

“You can if you were still seeing him.”

“I wasn’t seeing him!”

“Well, Clara, as the police will tell you, all this is extremely easy to establish. The question is: What game are you playing with me?”

She froze. “Hal, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Clara, you must know perfectly well why the police came to me first.”

Her face was blank. “No, I don’t.”

“My name and telephone number were found next to the dead man’s body.”

“Oh, my.” Clara took a deep breath and was instantly calm. She almost clapped her hands with joy. Hal was on the hook, and she was off.

“I gather you gave my number to him.” Harold put his drink down on the table beside his chair and his two palms on his knees. “Never mind. We can work it out. I’ve missed you, Clara. I know it’ll be great working together again.”

Clara smiled. She knew if she opened her mouth right now she’d say he was a dead man.