somewhat miffed that she had ever doubted me in the first place.
I never doubted you, she said.
I should have known that, I said. It was the evil influence of our good friend Harwood, then.
I defer to your judgment on that, she replied cagily.
Okay. I don’t want to put you on the spot.
We smiled at each other. We were old friends, colleagues again.
The problem is…I began.
Yes, I know. If it wasn’t you…
Who was it?
That’s the question, Rick. And I don’t have an answer for it.
I can’t even imagine, I lied.
I could have imagined many things. But I didn’t want to go there.
It’s not your job, Rick. Listen, I’m sorry you’ve had to go through all this. Detective Harwood may seem a bit crusty.
A bit?
Okay, a lot. But his heart’s in the right place.
I guess I’m just going to have to take your word for that.
Harwood chose that moment to make an appearance.
He looked no less rumpled, no less yellow and no less sardonic than the last time I’d seen him.
Laura tells me you’re not as mean as you look, I said.
She’s entitled to her opinion, he replied, lighting a Marlboro.
I laughed.
He didn’t.
So I guess you’re in the clear, he said, in a distinctly unconvinced tone.
Clear of what? Having sex with my own wife?
Lying about it afterwards.
Well, I said, I suppose. Though why I’d have wanted to I don’t know.
I can think of a few things, he said, expertly blowing a smoke ring and expelling a second spume of smoke through the center of it.
That’s a neat trick, I said.
You ain’t seen nothing.
I’ll bet.
Let’s get down to business, he said. We need some information.
Happy to oblige, I said. After all, you’ve been so hospitable.
Laura excused herself. To go cut up some dead people, presumably.
Harwood started asking questions. Many he’d asked before. I gave the same answers. Some were new. I started to catch the drift. The results hadn’t exonerated me. They’d just changed the theory. Now I’d given Melissa an overdose in revenge for her infidelity.
When it seemed that he was finished, I got up to leave. He put out a hand to shake. I put out mine. He grasped it firmly. His fingers were short. His hand was broad and strong. A working man’s hand.
He held mine for a while longer than seemed comfortable. He looked me in the eye.
The message was clear.
He wasn’t done with me yet.
81.
I called Sheila’s office. She had a cancellation. I tried to make a joke about it. She didn’t laugh. I didn’t press the issue. I hailed a cab. The driver smelled of pastrami and motor oil. At last a home-grown cabbie.
He let me off across the street from her building. I stole a smoke before going in. A few minutes late, in the world of Sheila’s patients, meant nothing. It meant high-functioning.
I settled into the couch with a sigh of relief.
The one predictable place in the universe, I said.
She raised an eyebrow.
I’ll complain, I said. You’ll say a word here and there. I’ll have a revelation. I’ll feel better. Until the next time I call and find you have a cancellation. Right?
She gave me a grave look. I knew her take on this. I used humor to avoid the pain. Avoid confronting problems. Blah, blah, blah.
But her look sobered me.
Okay, I said. Things are not that good.
She waited patiently. I told her the story. Some of the story. We talked about Kelly. How to make it easier on her.
I told her a bit more of the story. I told her about Harwood.
Oh dear, she said more than once, that’s terrible.
I still didn’t tell her everything.
You know, I said, I have these dreams.
Yes? she said, leaning slightly forward.
They’re always different, yet all the same.
Yes?
They’re kind of inchoate. Hard to describe. Hard to decipher, one by one. But in one sense they’re all the same. How is that?
There’s always been a crime. A serious crime.
Yes?
And I’m the perpetrator.
Hm.
Usually murder. I’ve killed someone. And I’ve gotten away with it. But not completely. I know I’ve done it, for one thing. And I can’t live with that. And there’s someone pursuing me. Someone who knows. A man in a long black coat, sometimes. I see him on the corner. He gets into the cab behind mine. I’m never really getting away with it. Sometimes the murder happened long ago. When I was young. But the point of the dream is, I’m about to get caught.
These kinds of dreams are not uncommon, she said in a reassuring tone.
What’s uncommon, I think, is how goddamn real they are.
How do you mean?
I wake up. Or I don’t, really. Sometimes I wake up from the dream into another dream. In the second dream I’m waking up from the first dream. And the first dream seems so real, that in the second dream I have to ask myself if the first dream was true, that it really happened. And often it seems that it did. That I’m guilty of some horrible crime.
And then?
And then I wake up from the second dream.
And?
The same thing happens.
What thing?
It still feels horribly, excruciatingly real. I’m only half awake. I’m still guilty. It still happened. And then, after I get up, I slap myself around, I get out into the world, it follows me.
The dream?
The guilt. The reality of it. It can go on for days. I look over my shoulder. I expect the knock on the door. I see a man in a long black coat. I see accusing looks everywhere I go. I’m guilty. I did it. I’m a murderer.
That’s terrible.
