Fever Dream (19 page)
Nancy, her hand still on my shoulder, had noticed me watching the couple and followed my eyes. I turned back to look at her.
“You know those two lovebirds?”
“Her name’s Victoria Tolan. Been a patient at Ten Oaks for a couple years. He’s a newbie named Stan Willis.”
“What’s their story?”
“Beats me. I didn’t even know they knew each other. I mean, that well. Though Ten Oaks is a pretty tight-knit community. Everybody knows everybody else.”
“I know. I remember.”
She smiled warmly. “It’s good to see you, Dan. It’s been too long.”
“Since that whole Wingfield thing, I guess.”
I took her arm and we started walking across the grass toward the parking lot.
Nancy Mendors and I had met when I was an intern at Ten Oaks. Then, years later, and only a few months after my wife’s murder, Nancy went through a bitter divorce. Both of us still reeling, we fell into a brief, passionate affair. Using clinging, desperate sex as a salve against loss and regret.
When it ended as abruptly as it had begun, we managed to remain good friends. Even though we saw each other infrequently, our worlds rarely intersecting. Nancy had stayed on staff at Ten Oaks, while I’d gone into private practice. Yet, for some reason, the bond we’d formed during that period of shared pain and mutual solace still sustained us.
It also allowed for a bracing honesty.
“You know,” I said as we neared the parking lot, “I feel like a jerk for not calling you when I heard the news. About your being made clinical director at Ten Oaks.”
“You
should
feel like a jerk.” Though her voice was smiling. “Are you too famous now to get together with old friends?”
I ducked my head. Pulled her closer to me. “Truth is, all I’ve done since the Wingfield case is concentrate on work. Try to recuperate—mentally
and
physically—from what happened.”
“Then what are you doing mixed up in this bank thing?”
“God only knows. I don’t even know if I can be of any help, but the cops’ve pulled rank on me. Put me on call for the week.”
Nancy gave an involuntary shiver. “I saw that guy Roarke’s picture on TV. Those shark eyes. God, I hope they catch him soon.”
“Me, too. My head still hurts from where he slugged me.”
She stopped, fists clenched on her hips.
“See, that’s my point, Danny. You’re a therapist, for Christ’s sake. Not a cop. What the hell were you doing, mixing it up with some bank robber? Didn’t you get your fill of stupid danger last year?”
“Funny, Noah scolded me about the same thing. Are you two talking behind my back?”
“I would if I thought it would do any good. But…”
She sighed, brought her hands up to grasp mine. Clutched them to my chest. “Please, Danny. Just be careful. For once in your life, stay on the goddam sidelines.”
“Now that
is
funny, coming from the clinical director of a prominent psych hospital. Hell, you’re on the front lines every day, fighting the good fight.”
She laughed. “Right. If you consider wading through oceans of paperwork and haggling with insurance companies the front lines…”
“Believe me, I do. Give me a stone killer with a loaded gun anytime.”
By then, we’d reached the edge of the parking lot. To our left, the two Ten Oaks clinicians were leading a crooked line of patients to a small yellow bus idling at the curb. Waiting to take them back to the clinic.
Nancy nodded in their direction.
“I’m glad we were able to organize this for Andy. Especially given how long he’d been at Ten Oaks. Still, only a few patients were that close to him, as you can imagine. He didn’t welcome it. Particularly given his difficulty in reading social cues.”
“Was he bothered by that?”
Her look was rueful. “Why would he be? Since when do machines pick up on social cues?”
I nodded. Andy’s delusion—as was true with many schizophrenics—had served a multitude of functions. Protective. Isolating. And, of course, providing him an explicit explanation for his alienation, his intense feelings of estrangement. To patients like Andy, their delusions were often the only thing that made sense in a senseless world.
One of the staff therapists was waving now in our direction, as he shepherded the last two patients onto the bus. I wasn’t surprised to see that it was the couple I’d noticed arguing at the grave. Victoria Tolan and Stan Willis.
As the therapist climbed aboard the bus behind them, Nancy turned to me.
“I probably should head back, too, Danny. Walk me to my car?”
The patient bus roared to life and headed toward the exit. Nancy and I involuntarily stepped back as a plume of exhaust trailed from the bus and hung, suspended like a low-lying cloud, in the still air.
Her car was parked not far from mine. We reached it in another minute, during which neither of us spoke.
As she rummaged in her purse for her car keys, I leaned against the hood, arms folded.
“Can I ask you a couple questions about Andy? I’m curious about a few things I read in his file.”
“Only a few?”
“Good point. Well, for one thing, he complained to his case manager about his CPS, whatever the hell that is. Says it hurt a lot.”
Nancy chuckled. “Yeah, that one stumped us for a while. CPS stands for Cranial Processing Software. His android brain. All it meant was that he had a headache.”
I took this in. “What about his earlier suicide attempts? Didn’t that indicate a need to change his meds?”
“Of course. Which we did, frequently. Plus we monitored him more strictly. Or as much as possible. You know what it’s like managing that many patients.”
“But according to his files, he seemed to be getting worse.”
Nancy opened the driver’s side door and stood up inside it. Intentionally or not, keeping it between me and her. A barrier.
“I know. From personal experience.” She paused. “I found him once. After one of his last suicide attempts. In the pantry off the kitchen. He’d stolen a screwdriver from the work shed and stabbed himself in the abdomen.”
“Poor bastard.”
She bit her lip. “He almost succeeded that time. Given the blood loss. Internal injuries.”
We both grew quiet. Nancy still standing behind the opened door. Me still leaning against the hood.
Something hung, unsaid, in the air. Like that exhaust cloud from the bus.
“Look,” I said at last, “I know you have to go. We can discuss Andy some other—”
“Dan, there’s something I have to tell you.”
Her voice was uncustomarily sharp. Clipped. As though she’d had to screw up her courage to get the words out. Hands clutching the door frame, as if for support.
“What is it?”
She swallowed. Her eyes were moist.
“I…I’ve met someone. A pediatric surgeon. Over at Children’s Hospital.” A careful pause. “That’s why I wasn’t home when you called last night. I was with Warren.”
I nodded. Which was all I could think to do.
Nancy took another breath.
“Warren and I…well, I wanted you to know. To find out from me first. We’re engaged.”
After I’d watched Nancy pull out of the parking lot, I retraced my steps back into the cemetery and sought out my parents’ graves. Standing alone on a treeless patch of yellowed grass, I looked down at the small, plain headstones. Feeling the familiar mix of loss and regret. For the mother I barely knew, the father I knew only too well.
At least the part of him I got to see: the anger, the bitterness. The disappointment with the way his life had turned out. Including, I suspected, the way
I’d
turned out. Too much like him, in some ways, and at the same time so different as to seem like an alien.
No epiphany visited me as I stood there, head bowed, the sun beating down like a shower of white heat. Until I didn’t want to stand there any longer and went back to where my car was parked. The only one left in the graveled lot. I got in and steered my way to the exit. In minutes, I was on the parkway heading into town.
Replaying in my head my conversation with Nancy.
I had to admit, her news had come as a shock. Of course, I’d made all the appropriate noises after she told me. Congratulated her. Wished her the best.
Which was how I truly felt.
Yet, as I hugged her good-bye, and kissed her neck, the scent of that unfamiliar perfume stung me. To my shame, I felt envious. The new perfume signifying to me that her life had changed. That
she’d
changed. Moved on.
And I had not.
But did I even want to? After our romantic relationship ended, had I ever wanted more from Nancy than just friendship? No matter how close, how intimate. Had she?
I pulled into the parking lot at Pittsburgh Memorial and cut the engine. Sat staring out the windshield at the bright, cloudless day.
It didn’t matter now. Nancy had found someone who made her happy, and as her friend I was sincerely glad for her.
Just as it was my duty—as her friend—to let her go.
***
“How much have you had to drink?” I asked Harry Polk as we rode up in the elevator to Ward B.
He frowned, as though he hadn’t heard right. “When?”
“Just now. At lunch.”
“What are you, my mother?”
“Don’t bullshit me, Harry. I’m starting to worry about you.”
He pursed his lips. “Is that a fact? Well, don’t put yourself out. And don’t play therapist with me. You know what I think o’ that stuff. Voodoo horseshit for wing-nuts and losers.”
I reached across and hit the elevator’s stop button. The car rumbled to a halt.
“Indulge me,” I said.
Now he was fuming. Stood shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
“You been talkin’ to Lowrey, ain’tcha?”
“I don’t need to talk to her. Or anyone. I have eyes, Harry. And a nose. I can smell it on your breath. Hell, even your clothes reek.”
A dark grin. “That’s why God invented breath mints.
And
after-shave.”
“Well, He didn’t invent enough of it. You think Biegler doesn’t know what’s going on?”
“From what I hear, he’s got enough to deal with without worryin’ about me. Nice piece o’ ass, that LaWanda. Real cop-friendly.” A sidelong look. “So I’ve heard.”
“Me, too. But I’m serious, Harry. You know that the whole ‘tough, hard-drinking cop’ thing is just Hollywood nonsense. Guys like that don’t stay detectives for long. Guys like that get transferred. Or suspended and sent to the department shrink. Or just kicked off the force.”
“Is that so? How do you know?” Polk stepped forward, eyes narrowing. “Unless you’re just goin’ down Memory Lane, thinkin’ about your old man. Kind of a legend around here, that mook. Put it away pretty good, on duty and off. Till his liver couldn’t take it no more.”
I felt the anger build in my chest. Forced myself to breathe evenly. Slowly.
“What?” Polk’s voice held a challenge. “You gonna take a swing at me? A cop? I don’t think you’ll like county lock-up, Danny boy. I hear the wine list sucks.”
We stood eyeball-to-eyeball in the cramped, unmoving elevator car. I felt the tension climbing up my arms, gathering in my throat.
I knew at that moment that one of us had to take a step back. I also saw that Polk wasn’t going to budge.
He was the law. He didn’t have to.
Finally, I let out a long breath and back-stepped into the near corner. Extended my hand until I could reach the stop button and release it. With a shudder, the car lurched into motion again.
When the elevator doors opened on Ward B, Harry Polk adjusted his tie and squinted at me.
“Glad we had this little chat,” he said. “But let’s not make it a habit.”
“Listen, Harry…”
“No,
you
listen. Maybe we’re friends, maybe we ain’t. But keep your goddam nose outta my business, okay?”
Then, voice thick and hard: “And tell Lowrey that goes for her, too.”
***
They’d moved Treva to a private room at the end of the hall. As Polk and I entered, the seasoned, sturdily-built duty nurse turned from adjusting the window blinds and smiled. The afternoon sun threw soft, diffused light against the opposite wall.
The nurse nodded at Treva, who lay against her bed pillows, eyes half-lidded. But awake. With no IV drip, no monitors.
“They’ve given permission for you gentlemen to talk to her,” the nurse said. “But not for too long. Okay?”
Treva opened her eyes. “It’s okay, Ruth. I’m fine.”
“And where did you get your medical degree, dear?”
The nurse waved her hand at Treva, gave Polk and me a serious look, and brushed past us out the door.
