Deadly Beloved

woman back on her anti-psychotics.”

“Bernie Levine was on top of that,” I said. “And we figured Marcy might do better with a sleeping pill prescription that didn’t include side effects of hallucinations.”

Dr. Cassel said nothing but, out of the corner of an eye, I saw him shuddering.

I went on: “But I also had to call on a...you should pardon the expression, Doc...head shrinker....”

The clinic was in upscale Oak Brook and I had to wonder if Marcy had chosen it so that she could do some shopping on the days she had her appointments. If so, that showed how casual her once critical condition had become over years of functional stability.

I promised the receptionist I needed only five minutes between patients to ask Dr. Sanders a handful of questions, calling it police business, flashing my Illinois private operator’s license with badge and, as usual, having it pass muster. If it hadn’t, I could have had a call put into Rafe, who would vouch that the Tree Agency was working with the police on the Addwatter matter.

And this was the first thing I explained to Dr. Sanders, an attractive brunette in her fifties in dark gray-framed designer glasses and a tailored gray suit and darker gray silk blouse that went with her striking gray eyes, though there was no gray in her hair, which she wore up.

As I settled into the client’s chair, I stayed in my blue trenchcoat, to send a message that I wouldn’t be here long. After explaining away my “police business” claim, I handed Dr. Sanders a single-spaced typed sheet on attorney Levine’s letterhead.

“Doctor, I think this affidavit signed by both Marcy Addwatter and her attorney should cut through any patient/doctor confidentiality concerns.”

Dr. Sanders did not respond; she was reading the affidavit—slowly.

She was behind a big mahogany desk almost as neatly arranged as Rafe Valer’s, in a fairly large room that included this office area and another space where chairs faced each other for consultations, plus a small kitchenette with a table and chairs and a fridge and a counter with coffee-maker.

Despite the latter, I had not been offered anything to drink. On the other hand, my chair was a padded leather one and comfy, and the general tone of the place—pale blue walls, sunny landscape paintings—was soothing.

Dr. Sanders’s icy smile, however, wasn’t all that soothing—her lipstick was dark red and the effect was that of a cut in her face.

“We can talk,” Dr. Sanders said, as she placed the affidavit on her desk ever so perfectly. Neatness issues.

I kept my tone pleasantly businesslike. “As Marcy Addwatter’s psychologist, you met with her monthly, I understand.”

Her eyes went to mine but somehow didn’t meet them. “Yes.”

“How would you characterize her condition?”

She could rock in her chair and she did, a little. “Under medication? Stable.”

“Are there...degrees of stability?”

Half a smile flicked, tiny annoyance registering. “Ms. Tree, Mrs. Addwatter is severely schizophrenic. It’s a small miracle she’s done as well as she has.”

“But she has done well?”

“Very well.” The smallest of sighs. “And that may be the problem.”

“How so?”

Her shrug was barely perceptible. “Patients who think they’re doing fine sometimes take it upon themselves to go off their meds.”

I nodded. “If, for whatever reason, Marcy Addwatter were off her medication...and if she learned her husband had started cheating again...could that add up to, well...murder?”

She stopped rocking. “Possibly.”

“Did you prescribe her medication?”

“Through referral, yes.”

I gestured with an open hand, tried to keep my tone non-confrontational. “With patients who’ve been doing very well...particularly those who’ve been stable for years...don’t mental health practitioners sometimes take such patients off their medication? And substitute placebos?”

She tried to brush that off with her cut of a smile, but her eyes were tight behind the sleek gray-rimmed glasses. “That’s called a ‘drug holiday,’ and Mrs. Addwatter, as events have shown, would hardly be a candidate.”

“We know that in retrospect.” I leaned forward, and when I spoke I tried to keep the threat out of my voice though it could hardly escape my words. “Dr. Sanders, if you recommended a drug holiday for Marcy Addwatter, we need to know it.”

The gray eyes opened wider, then settled back into a self-controlled chilly gaze. “If that were true—and it isn’t—that could be a serious case of malpractice.”

I shook my head. “I can assure you, Dr. Sanders, that if you innocently sent your patient on a drug holiday, that information would be regarded by her legal representatives in the most friendly way. It would aid immeasurably in Mrs. Addwatter’s defense. Any considerations of malpractice would be off the table.”

She listened to all of that with strained patience, and her smile was typically frigid as she said, “I can assure you that I would be the first to step forward to help Marcy, if my misjudgment had unintentionally aided and abetted this murder.”

I raised an eyebrow, and the ante. “Murders. Two people were killed, her husband and a prostitute.”

Her elbows were on the desk now, perfectly parallel; she tented her fingertips.

She tilted her head in a manner that told me this interview was over. “Ms. Tree, is there anything else? You’re past the five minutes you requested, and I’m sure you’ll understand that I have a busy schedule.”

“I do understand, Doctor.” I gave her the finger that points like a gun. “What you need to understand is that your patient was on a drug holiday, whether you prescribed it or not.”

Her laugh was as chilly as her smile. “That’s absurd.”

I got to my feet. “What if I told you Marcy Addwatter’s medication was analyzed and found to be sugar pills?”

“Why, I’d say you were—”

I did my best to give her a smile every bit as cold as the ones she’d dished out to me. “Crazy?”

EIGHT

Chic Steele and I were at Mike Ditka’s again, without Rafe Valer as a chaperone this time, in a leatherette booth just two down from where we’d sat on our previous visit. We were having coffee and working on one creme brulee with two spoons.

For well past the end of the business day, my tanned, blue-eyed, blond dinner companion looked depressingly fresh in his dark blue sportjacket, lighter blue Oxford shirt and striped chocolate tie. My maroon pinstripe one-button jacket with matching cuffed pants, and the silk blouse with cami, had looked pretty sharp to me this morning; I wondered if my outfit was looking as drag-assy by now as I felt.

“And why aren’t you hitting Lt. Valer up for this information?” he was asking me. “Isn’t this Event Planner his case? Or should I say, obsession?”

I swallowed my creamy bite. “Rafe’s a little frazzled, at the moment, frankly.”

Chic’s forehead tensed with concern. “Word around HQ is, our man in Homicide is not his normal cool-headed self.”

Having witnessed the lieutenant’s less than deft interrogation of Ron Grubb, I knew that to be true.

I shrugged and said, “Whatever’s going on with Rafe, I’d rather not put anything else on his plate right