Ricky and the detective sat down at the desk. “But-”
Detective Riggins cut him off before he could get further with his question. “You said you were Mr. Zimmerman’s therapist, correct?”
She pulled out a notepad and pencil.
“Yes. He’d been in analysis during this past year. But…”
“And did you detect any heightened suicidal tendencies in the last couple of weeks?”
“No. Absolutely not,” Ricky said with determination.
The detective raised her eyebrows in modest surprise. “Really, no? None whatsoever?”
“That’s what I just said,” Ricky replied. “In fact…”
“He was making progress in his analysis, then?”
Ricky hesitated.
“Well?” the detective asked abruptly. “Was he getting better? Gaining control? Feeling more confident? More ready to take on the world? Less depressed? Less angry?”
Again, Ricky paused, before replying. “I would say that he had not made what either you or I would consider a breakthrough. He was still struggling deeply with the issues that plagued his life.”
Detective Riggins smiled, but without humor. Her words had an edgy tone. “So, after almost a year of near-constant treatment, fifty minutes per day, five days per week-what, forty-eight weeks per year-it would be safe to say that he was still depressed and frustrated by his life?”
Ricky bit down on his lip briefly, then nodded.
Detective Riggins wrote a few words down on her pad. Ricky could not see what she scribbled. “Would despair be too strong a word?”
“Yes,” Ricky said with irritation.
“Even if that was the first word that his mother, whom he lived with, used? And the same word that several of his coworkers came up with?”
“Yes,” Ricky insisted.
“So, you don’t think he was suicidal?”
“I told you, detective. He didn’t present with any of the classic symptomology. Had he, I would have taken steps…”
“What sort of steps?”
“We would have tried to focus the sessions more specifically. Perhaps medication, if I actually thought the threat was sincere…”
“I thought you just said you didn’t like prescribing pills?”
“I don’t, but…”
“Aren’t you going on vacation? Like real soon?”
“Yes. Tomorrow, at least I’m scheduled to begin, but what has that…”
“So, as of tomorrow, his therapeutic lifeline was going on vacation?”
“Yes, but I fail to see…”
The detective smiled. “Those are interesting words for a shrink to use.”
“What words?” Ricky asked, his exasperation reaching deep within him.
“‘Fail to see…,’ ” Detective Riggins said. “Isn’t that pretty close to what you guys like to call a Freudian slip?”
“No.”
“So, you just don’t think he committed suicide?”
“No, I do not. I just…”
“Have you ever lost a patient to suicide in the past?”
“Yes. Unfortunately. But in that case the signs were clear-cut. My efforts, however, weren’t adequate for the depth of that patient’s depression.”
“That failure stick with you for a while, doc?”
“Yes,” Ricky replied coldly.
“It would be bad for your business and real bad for your reputation if another one of your long-term patients decided to take on the Eighth Avenue express one-on-one, wouldn’t it?”
Ricky rocked back in the chair, scowling.
“I don’t appreciate the implication in your question, detective.”
Riggins smiled, shaking her head slightly. “Well, let’s move on, then. If you don’t think he killed himself, the alternative is that someone pushed him in front of that train. Did Mr. Zimmerman ever speak about anyone who hated him, or who bore a grudge, or who might have a motive for homicide? He spoke to you every day, so presumably if he was being stalked by some unknown killer he might have mentioned it. Did he?”
“No. He never mentioned anyone who would fit the categories you suggest.”
“He never said, ‘So and so wants me dead… ‘?”
“No.”
“And you’d remember if he had?”
“Of course.”
“Okay, so no one real obvious was trying to do him in. No business partner? Estranged lover? Cuckolded husband? You think someone might have pushed him in front of the express for what? Kicks? Some other mysterious reason?”
Ricky hesitated. He realized this was his opportunity to tell the police about the letter demanding he kill himself, the visit from the naked woman Virgil, the game he was being asked to play. All he had to do was to say that a crime had been committed, and that Zimmerman was a victim of an act that had nothing to do with him except his death. Ricky half opened his mouth to blurt out all these details, to let them flow forth unchecked, but what he saw instead was a bored and barely interested detective, seeking to wrap up an altogether unpleasant day with a single typewritten form which wouldn’t contain a category for the information he was about to deliver.
He decided, in that second, to keep his own counsel. This was his psychoanalyst’s nature. He did not share speculation or opinion easily or publicly. “Perhaps,” he said. “What do you know about this other woman? The woman who gave LuAnne the ten dollars?”
The detective wrinkled her forehead, as if confused by the question. “Well, what about her?”
“Isn’t her behavior in the slightest bit suspicious? Didn’t it seem that she was putting words into LuAnne’s mouth?”
The detective shrugged. “I don’t know that. A woman and a man accompanying her see that one of the less fortunate citizens of our great city might be an important witness to an event, so they make sure that the poor witness gets some compensation to step forward and help the police. This might be less suspicious than it is good citizenship, because LuAnne steps right up and helps us out, at least in part because of the intervention of this couple.”
Ricky paused, then asked, “You didn’t happen to find out who they were, did you?”
The detective shook her head. “Sorry. They pointed out LuAnne to one of the first officers on the scene, and then took off after informing the officer that they themselves were positioned poorly to see exactly what took place. And no, he didn’t get a name from either of them because they weren’t witnesses. Why?”
Ricky did not know whether he wanted to answer this question. A part of him screamed that he should unburden himself of everything. But he had no idea how dangerous this might be. He was trying to calculate, to guess, to assess, and to examine, but it suddenly seemed as if all the events that surrounded him were hazy and impossible to decipher, unclear and elusive. He shook his head, as if that might jog all the emotions into some sort of definition. “I have my sincere doubts that Mr. Zimmerman would kill himself. His condition most definitely didn’t seem that severe,” Ricky said. “Write that down, detective, and put it in your report.”
Detective Riggins shrugged and grinned with an ill-disguised fatigue accented by
