A Fatal Debt

Milk, sugar?”

I sat in the seat she’d indicated and, looking down, saw a three-foot chain bolted to the floor under my feet. There was a pair of handcuffs attached to one end, and I realized they were shackles. Christ, I thought. Did they chain Harry when they brought him to this place? Hodge reentered with two paper cups of coffee and sat down silently by Pagonis’s side, giving me a glare of suspicion. Her face was lined with exhaustion, but adrenaline was keeping her going-it had to be the biggest case of her career.

“We’re investigating the death of Marcus Greene,” she said, stirring sugar into her brew. “We aren’t called out to East Hampton much. The village police deal with most things there-tennis permits, break-ins, that stuff. We don’t get a lot of business, so this is a change all right. Shapiro probably told you what happened.”

“As I said, I can’t discuss that.”

“Sure, sure. Listen, Mike, why don’t you get the photos? Dr. Cowper’s a professional, right? He’ll want to know what his patient did.”

No, I won’t, I thought, but there was nothing to do but wait as Hodge heaved himself to his feet again and wandered out of the room in search of the evidence. Pagonis gazed at me with superficial friendliness, as if all of us were in this together. A couple of minutes later, he walked back into the room, spilling half a dozen photos on the desk.

“Messy, eh?” Pagonis said, looking at me.

Reluctantly, I picked up one of the images and looked at it. I recognized the Shapiros’ living room right away. The shot was taken from roughly where I’d sat talking to Nora. Had it been only two weeks ago? It felt as if it had been forever. The sofa on which she’d sat was in the background, with their conservatory behind. In front was the gray-and-black wool rug, on which a man’s body rested, with his left arm splayed out to one side. The right one was clasped over his chest, as if in a useless effort to stop up the wound that had killed him. I could see a small entry mark in his chest on the left-hand side, a few inches above the heart. Behind his back, blood had flooded out, encrusting a wide pool of dark red soaking into the rug. It looked as if the bullet had taken out an artery on the way through. If his death hadn’t been immediate, it must have come within minutes.

“This is him,” Pagonis said, handing me another photo.

I’d seen Greene’s face in newspaper photos since the killing, and I recognized it inert on the rug, photographed from above. His face was white and his eyes stared out unseeingly. His upper lip was twisted in a rictus, as if frozen as he forced out his last words-he looked both scornful and desperate. His head rested in the pool of blood, to which a few strands of his graying hair were glued. I was used to seeing the faces of the dead in Episcopal, but this was different, more personal, as if it were a relative of mine whose last agony had been preserved there. I felt saliva drip inside my mouth and tried to control my nausea.

“What do you think of your patient’s handiwork?” she asked. Your patient. Your fault. Pagonis wasn’t subtle. “Shapiro had a nine-millimeter. Not a bad shot. He must have been a few yards away. There’s no powder on the clothes. He fired twice, but we haven’t found the other bullet. Must have missed once and got him the second time. Here, look.”

She pushed the photo toward me and tapped it, as if I hadn’t seen enough the first time. I reluctantly examined Greene’s face again. Those cold, staring eyes told me the error I’d made-I’d caused this man to die in agony.

“We’ll show you the weapon,” Pagonis said relentlessly. “Mike?”

Hodge lumbered to his feet again and she gave me the same thin, hard smile as we awaited his return. I stared at her blankly, but inside my mind was in turmoil. I thought of the gun I’d held in the ER when Nora had handed it to me-a Beretta Cheetah, I remembered Pete O’Meara telling me. My fingerprints must be on it, I thought. That’s why Pagonis has got me here. I knew there must be more to it than just Harry’s statement. They know everything that happened-the signs that I ignored.

Minutes passed as we waited for Hodge. Pagonis looked as if she could sense my discomfort and was gratified by it. I heard his footsteps in the corridor and saw a familiar shape grasped in his right hand as he walked over to us, a gun held securely in a plastic evidence bag to prevent contamination.

“There we are,” she said as Hodge placed it on the table. “A Glock. Shapiro’s fingerprints were all over it and powder on his hands.”

I didn’t say anything, just reached forward and pulled it toward me. It wasn’t the same gun. It was a similar shape, but it looked a little bigger and it was dull gray with a square barrel, like those the New York police carry. Thank God, I thought. I’d misjudged Nora after all. She’d kept the gun safe, as I’d told her to do. Then I thought of Harry. I wondered how he’d got hold of this gun. Nora hadn’t mentioned another weapon, so where had it come from?

“You’re a shrink at Episcopal?” Pagonis said.

“An attending psychiatrist, yes.”

“Shapiro says you admitted him to the hospital, right?”

“I can’t tell you, I’m afraid.”

“Did you think he was dangerous?”

“Again, it’s privileged.”

“But you let him out again,” Hodge said, his eyes flat.

I wondered if he distrusted all psychs or if he felt a particular enmity for me. Probably the first: most cops thought our job was to concoct bullshit excuses for criminals.

“I’ve told you that I’m unable to discuss this,” I said with an edge. “There are strict laws on patient confidentiality in New York State.”

“What you did was very convenient,” Pagonis said, ignoring me. “You take him into the hospital, establish he’s not right in the head, then let him out. A couple of days later, he goes on the run and pulls this gun on Greene. Then he calls up his wife back in New York and tells her. Next up, he calls the East Hampton police to hand himself in. We’ve got a record of both those calls. It looks nicely planned to me, not at all crazy, but you gave the guy the perfect defense.”

Her voice was laden with cynicism, and I couldn’t say I blamed her. Harry had tried his excuse about my treatment absolving him of responsibility on me in Riverhead. I’d reacted the same way as Pagonis.

“Detective,” I said, “I can’t help you.”

Pagonis treated me to a long, cool look before getting up from her chair. “All right, we’ll talk again. Here’s my card,” she said, handing me one. “Call me if you change your mind. Mike will show you out.”

Back at ground level, Hodge pulled aside the metal elevator door and watched me as I walked back to my car. My fingers were shaking as I tried to put the key in the ignition, and I managed it only at the third attempt.

10

Duncan’s assistants were buried in their work when I obeyed her summons to her office two days later, as if they’d been stuck in that position since I’d last seen them. The clicking of keyboards was interrupted briefly by one of them opening a can of Coke Zero with a hiss while the other waved me to a chair to wait.

My feelings about her, never warm, had worsened since Greene’s death. If she hadn’t interfered, if she’d left me to treat Harry, I could have averted this disaster. I’d have kept him in York East until the drugs had started to work and he was less dangerous. He’d fooled me about the person he’d intended to kill-I’d believed it was himself and not Greene-but I’d known he was dangerous and we ought not to risk freeing him in that condition. Although I was angry at the way he’d blamed the whole thing on the drugs and his condition, it would carry weight with a judge. He’d been my patient and I hadn’t done my duty.

After my ten-minute quarantine was up, Duncan once again peered around the door and ushered me into her room.

“Well,” she said, offering me a tight grimace as she stood and looked at me, “this is a mess, isn’t it?”

Her expression was a cocktail-one measure of sympathy to three measures of iron determination that if anyone at Episcopal ended up suffering as a result of Greene’s death, it wouldn’t be her.