“YOU'RE BEHAVING oddly,” Gloria said when I arrived at the Pearce just in time for the morning meeting.
“Odd how?”
“Well, number one, you didn't rush right in and pour yourself a cup of coffee.” It was true. I hadn't needed an extra jolt to wake myself up.
“And number two”âshe tilted her head and appraised meâ“number two, you look entirely too relaxed for a Monday morning.”
“What can I tell you? I had a nice weekend.” It had been a lovely weekend. Annie and I had spent Saturday night at her place, Sunday night at mine. By Monday, I
was
feeling extremely relaxed.
“He had a good weekend,” Gloria told Kwan when he arrived.
“He did, did he?” Kwan looked interested. “It's none of my business, of course, butâ”
“That's right. It's none of your business,” I said.
“My dear Peter, you know I always have only your very best interests at heart. Just ask and ye shall receive. Which reminds me. I asked around about that psychiatrist, Dr. Teitlebaum. Did a residency here maybe ten years ago. He's pretty well respected.” From the way Kwan was rocking forward on his toes, I knew there was more to tell. “Left Rhode Island not long after he testified in a murder case.”
“No shit?” I said, stunned.
“The Ely case.”
Even though the Ely murder had taken place in small-town Rhode Island, the story had saturated the Boston media two, maybe three summers ago when the murder took place, then again for the trial. Every semiconscious soul in New England knew the gruesome details. A man beat his wife, then cut her open and impaled her heart on a stake in the backyard. They arrested the guy at an ice cream stand, his infant daughter sound asleep in the car.
I didn't remember much about the trial, but I did remember the one thing that convinced the jury that Ely was not insane: the prosecutor's argument that the crazy confusion of the crime scene was staged by a diabolical killer who knew exactly what he was doing and planned from the outset to plead NGI. State of mind is a critical factor in an insanity defense. Ely's lawyers tried to argue that he couldn't “form intent”âa fancy way of saying he wasn't in the driver's seat when he killed his wife. The jury didn't buy it. Ely was doing life.
I wondered, had Teitlebaum been a witness for the defense or the prosecution? Why hadn't he mentioned that he'd done forensic work?
I was about to ask Kwan how he'd found this out, when a shout came from down the hall. Then, “Stop her!” Followed by a man's voice, “You can't take that!”
Gloria took off first. We hurried past the living area where a woman in a wheelchair sat watching TV, undisturbed by the commotion. On past several patient rooms. A hooded figure, cloaked in a bedsheet, ran into us. Close on its heels was one of our patients, Mrs. Brownmiller, in a flannel bathrobe.
“Make her give it back,” Mrs. Brownmiller demanded. I was surprised. Mrs. Brownmiller was an extremely timid person who suffered bouts of depression associated with a head injury she'd received more than a decade ago. She held out a thin, trembling hand.
Another patient joined us. “Those are mine,” Mr. Higgins said, indignant.
From underneath the bedsheet, Mrs. Smetz looked out at us, her face flushed. “Oh, here you are again,” she said, eyes wide with delight. “See?” She held out what she was carrying in her arms. There were about a half dozen gladiolus stems, some carnations, a few handfuls of dry Spanish moss. There was most of an artificial rubber plant minus its pot, which I thought I'd last seen alongside the piano in the living area. Mrs. Smetz dropped some greenery.
“Oh, dear. If it isn't Audrey,” Gloria said. Gloria bent to pick up the three-foot length of philodendron that lay on the floor.
Mrs. Smetz lay her hand gently on top of Gloria's head and said, “God bless you, my child.” She took back the philodendron. “Won't be long now.”
We followed Mrs. Smetz back to her room. There, in the closet, she had already accumulated a pile of dead flowers, what looked like rotting salad greens, and more Spanish moss. To this she added the rest of what she'd collected.
While Mrs. Smetz explained to me the fine points of constructing a manger, Gloria liberated the gladioli and carnations and went off, presumably to return them to their owners.
Mr. Smetz snorted from behind a newspaper in the chair in
the corner. He'd probably reached the end of his tether.
Gloria returned. “This has been going on for a few days,” she said. “And she's got a terrible rash. Wouldn't surprise me if carting around all this vegetation is making it worse.” Gloria coaxed Mrs. Smetz out of her sheet. “See?” she said, extending one of Mrs. Smetz's arms. There were the remains of a red scaly rash.
“Looks like poison ivy,” Kwan said.
“She got that a couple of weeks ago,” Mr. Smetz offered.
“I was building the manger,” Mrs. Smetz said.
“Was not. She was gardening and got into some poison ivy,” Mr. Smetz shot back, slapping his paper down on the bed. “Didn't realize it at the timeâit hadn't even leafed out. Got really bad. Spread up to her armpits and to her legs too. Thought we had it under controlâ”
Kwan pounced. “Has she been taking anything for it?”
Mr. Smetz fished a small plastic container of tiny white pills from his pocket. “I been giving her these. Got it last time I got into poison ivy bad myself.”
Kwan took it from him. Read the label. Then he held it up, triumphant. “Prednisone!”
“Of course,” I said. I took the container. It was dated three years earlier, but it was obviously still potent.
“Why didn't you tell us about this when your wife was admitted?” Gloria asked, an accusatory edge to her voice.
“I didn't think ⦠It didn't seem ⦔ Mr. Smetz stammered. “It's just for poison ivy! Did I do something wrong?”
“You should have told us,” Kwan said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Prednisone is a steroid. And of course, you're right. It's a standard treatment for severe poison ivy. Sixty milligrams is fine for your average patient. But metabolism changes as you get older. You never know what it will do to someone your wife's age. When did she start taking this?”
“Let's see, beginning of the month.” That was two weeks earlier.
“And she started talking about a manger a few days after that?” Kwan asked.
Mr. Smetz nodded. “Weekend before last.”
“Looks like Prednisone psychosis,” Kwan said. “The drugs are causing the delusion. Her labs, even a tox screen wouldn't have picked it up. We'll need to taper her off gradually. In the meanwhile, we'll continue to treat her with Zyprexa. Give her something else for the itching. In all likelihood, your wife will be back to normal in a few weeks.”
“You mean Elizabeth's not crazy?” Mr. Smetz asked.
“No. At least, I don't think so,” Kwan said. “She's having a drug reaction. Okay if I hang onto this?” Kwan held out the pill container and Mr. Smetz stared at it, shell-shocked.
Prednisone tablets were no bigger than a freckle. I could see why Mr. Smetz hadn't thought it was important to mention them.
When I got up to my office, tucked into the eaves under the roof, I checked my messages.
The first was a long, rambling message from a woman I didn't know. Kelly something or another. I doodled on a pad as she talked. “I'm a writer for the
Globe,”
she said. “I'm putting together an article about obsessions, and the compulsive, repetitive behaviors people use to neutralize them.” From the way she used the words, I could tell she'd been prepped by at least one mental health professional. “I understand you run one of the units at the Pearce ⦔
I stood and stared out the window as she finished her pitch, repeated her name, and recited her phone number. I get calls like this all the time, ever since I'd let the
Globe
do a feature
article on me as a memory expert. At the time I'd been flattered. But since then, every time I'd let someone from the news media interview me, I'd been dismayed by the watered-down, garbled version that appeared in the paper. Plus, I'd had enough notoriety to last me a lifetime. I deleted the message.
The next message was from Annie. There had been a development in the case and could I meet her later? That wasn't going to be easy. I had bumper-to-bumper patients all day, a late afternoon committee meeting, and paperwork that I'd already put off for two weeks. I called back and left a message that I'd meet her at nine for a late dinner at the Stavros Diner.
Four superstrength Advil downed with a large coffee barely made a dent in a headache that started late that afternoon, around the time the sky turned gray and the temperature dropped thirty degrees in an hour. When I finally finished up and got out to my car, the wind was tossing around tree branches, and I could hear distant thunder. By the time I got out onto the main road, it had started to rain. Hard. My old BMW's wipers were having a hard time keeping up with wind-driven sheets of rain.
What should have been a five-minute drive took thirty. At least there were parking spots on the street. I pulled into one and groped around on the floor of the backseat, hoping to come up with a forgotten umbrella. No such luck. I sat for a few minutes in the car. Maybe the rain would ease up and I could make a run for it. Instead, it started to come down harder.
A flash of lightning lit up the windshield, followed seconds later by the crash of thunder that reverberated through the steering wheel.
I was only a half block away. What the hell, I thought, as I got ready to open the door. The windshield lit up again. I waited for the thunder. I could barely hear a siren over the pelting rain. A dark sedan with a blue bubble flashing in the back window
raced by, sending a wave of water over my car. The sedan double-parked in front of the Stavros, and two men jumped out.
I jerked open my car door and got out just in time to catch the wave from an SUV moving by me at top speed. I cursed and slammed the door shut, not bothering to lock it. I barely noticed the ankle-deep puddles I was galloping through.
When I got into the Stavros, Jimmy wasn't in his usual spot working the grill. No one was. I scanned the place for Annie. Though the restaurant was half full, no one was eating. They were all turned, like a pack of hunting dogs, noses pointing toward the door to the restrooms where a dozen or so patrons were bunched up.
“Police,” the man in front of me bellowed as he and the other man pushed their way through the crowd and into the men's room. I rode their wake.
The voice belonged to Detective Sergeant MacRae. “Just stand up, nice and slow. Take it easy and you won't get hurt,” he said, his hand poised over his gun.
“You guys sure as hell took your good sweet time getting here.” It was Annie. She had her knee pinned to the back of a young man sprawled on the floor. He was wearing a yellow rain slicker, the kind of thing my mother insisted I wear to elementary school, much to my chagrin. Annie had his arm twisted behind his back. A green canvas book bag was on the floor, its contents strewn across the dirty tile.
Annie stood.
The man got to his feet, holding his hands up. “I tried to tell her. It's a job,” he croaked, pushing long, stringy strands of dark hair out of his face. “My glasses,” he said and got on his hands and knees and groped about for them. A pair of dark-rimmed glasses were lying behind a white metal trash bin. I handed them to him.
He put them on. He was just a kid, maybe eighteen, wearing
jeans and an MIT T-shirt under the slicker. His sneakers had once been white, but now they were ratty looking and waterlogged. A sparse crop of hair was trying to grow on his face. “My Palm!” he bleated and stooped to pick up a handheld computer. He pressed a button, and after a moment, it beeped at him. “Thank God,” he said dramatically.
He put the gadget reverently in his pocket and blinked at us, eyes enlarged through the thick glass. “Honest to God, I didn't do anything,” he said and started to collect the papers that had spilled out of his bag. Photocopies on hot pink paper. Annie grabbed them from him and the top sheet tore. He looked at the half sheet he still had in his hand, the figure of a woman in a leather bomber's jacket and jeans. “What is with you, anyway?” Then he looked at Annie, back at the paper, back at Annie. “Damn.”
Annie returned his gaze. She seemed disappointed. She'd caught him, but now she looked as if she wanted to throw him back.
MacRae took the kid by the arm. “Why don't we go have a quiet talk about this so-called job of yours,” he said.
MacRae's partner took the canvas bag. Annie picked up her leather backpack, which had landed under the urinals.
“Show's over, folks,” MacRae said, as he led the way back into the restaurant.