The shrink said, “You certainly didn’t waste any time making this appointment, Detective.” Department psychologist Lon King, Ph. D., had a friendly, low-key manner that reminded her of gentle surf somewhere tropical. “I only got your precinct commander’s referral ticket this morning after your, uh, meeting.”
“I wanted to get through this and get back to work, if you don’t mind my being blunt.”
“Blunt works here. Honesty is even better. I’ll take both.” He took a quiet moment in the soft chair facing Nikki’s to study her intake questionnaire. She watched him for reactions but got none. His face had such a flat affect and natural calm she decided never to play poker with Dr. Lon King. Primarily, Heat considered herself fortunate to have been able to make an appointment on the same day as her stupid mandate from Irons. She hoped this meeting would be short because one of Detective Feller’s pals from the Taxi Squad had just come through and located the cab Don’s shooter had commandeered. It was parked under an entrance ramp to the Bruckner in the Bronx. Parts scavengers and vandals had picked it clean overnight, from medallion to copper wiring, but Forensics had it now, and she was eager to get back to see if it offered any clues to his identity. Like, did he take off his gloves and leave prints? It was then that Nikki realized King was asking her something.
“Pardon me?”
“I just asked if you have experienced any loss of concentration lately.”
“No,” she said, hoping the first question wasn’t pass/fail. “I feel sharp.”
“I deal with a lot of post-traumatic stress disorder, and I’m accustomed to police officers who are wired to prove they’re invulnerable. So please know that there’s no shame in anything you are experiencing or in what you share here.” Heat nodded and smiled enough to signal her acceptance of that, all the while worried this man could sideline her indefinitely with the stroke of a pen. “And, to be clear, I have no interest in keeping you in treatment,” he said, as if reading her mind. Or just knowing it. He continued to ask her questions, some of which she’d already covered in writing on the intake. About her sleep habits, alcohol consumption, whether she felt jumpy or frequently startled. If the shrink felt satisfied or troubled by her responses, Lon King displayed no tells.
He said, “I suppose we can stipulate the answer to one question is a yes-that you have, in your life, witnessed life-threatening events.”
“Homicide detective,” she answered, pointing at herself with both hands.
“What about personally, though? Outside the job?” She shared as briefly as she dared, without disrespecting the process, events of her mother’s murder. He paused when she finished, then, mellow as a smooth jazz announcer, said, “At nineteen, that can be formative. Do you ever experience things that make you feel you are revisiting or reliving that tragedy?”
Nikki wanted to laugh and say, “Only all the time,” but feared she might bury herself in months of off-duty shrinkage, so she said, “In the most positive way. My work puts me in contact with victims and their loved ones. Whatever intersection there is with my own life, I try to utilize to help them and my investigative work.”
King didn’t race over to slap a gold star on her crown. All she got was an “I see” before he asked, “And what about things that you associate with your mother’s murder? Do you ever find yourself avoiding people or things that remind you of it?”
“Huh…” Heat slumped back against the cushion and looked at the ceiling. A second hand ticked softly on a clock behind her, and through the closed window behind him, she could hear the reassuring flow of York Avenue twelve stories below. Nikki’s only answer was her avoidance of the piano in the living room. She told him that she couldn’t bring herself to play it and explained why while he just listened. Another aversion, one that hadn’t occurred to her until then, was the arm’s length relationship with her father. Nikki had always attributed that distance to him, but to raise it in that session could unseal Pandora’s box, and so she left it at the piano, and even asked if that was a bad thing.
“There’s no good or bad. We’ll just talk and let a whole picture emerge.”
“Great.”
“Is your father still living?” Was this guy a psychologist or a psychic? Nikki filled him in on the divorce and painted a distant but cordial relationship, shading the arm’s length part as coming from her father’s shoulder, not hers, which was partially true anyway. “When was the last contact you had with your father?”
“A couple of hours ago. I called him to do damage control on a mess created by my captain, who sent an investigator to question him about my mom’s murder.”
“So, you reached out to him.” Heat gave a strong yes, mindful of the PTSD warning sign of avoiding people linked to a trauma. “And how did your dad receive it?”
Nikki recalled his bluster and the jangle of ice cubes. “Let’s just say he could have been more present.” The therapist didn’t dwell on that but moved on to ask her about her other relationships, and she said, “Because of my work, it’s hard to maintain one, as you probably know.”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
Truthfully, but as briefly as she could, Nikki summarized the nature of her relationships over the past few years, the longest, most recent one being with Don. She gave King the same version she had shared with Detective Caparella the night before: Combat training partner with benefits. She told him next about Jameson Rook. His only digression in the session was to ask if he was the famous writer. Nikki used that as a point of entry to describe how they had met on his ride-along the summer before and how, even though she and Rook seemed exclusive, it was undeclared. Nonetheless she had not slept with Don or anyone since she met Rook.
“How are you dealing after last night’s shooting?”
“It’s difficult.” Tears made an invasion attempt as she reflected on poor Don, but she held them back. “Mainly, I’m trying to postpone dealing.”
“And last night, when you were with Don, was that platonic?”
“Yes,” Nikki said in a blurt.
“That was an emphatic response. Is it a sensitive topic?”
“Not really. Don and I had just had a workout. At our gym. And he came back to my place for a shower. That’s when the shooting happened.”
“A shower. And where was Mr. Rook?”
“Back at his place. We’d had a fight, and I… needed to blow off steam.” Lon King set aside the intake papers and folded his hands in his lap, watching her. Uncomfortable with the silence, she said, “I will admit, I toyed with straying, but…”
“You said you and Mr. Rook hadn’t declared exclusivity.”
“No, but…”
“What do you think the-toying, as you called it-was all about?”
“I don’t know.” And then Nikki surprised herself by asking, “Do you?”
“Only you do,” he said. “People make their own rules about what’s faithful, or not. Just as they have their own reasons for holding to those rules, or not.” She took a page from him and, for a change, waited him out. He obliged. “Sometimes… only sometimes, mind you… people in crisis try to mask their pain through deflection. Try to envision a subconscious attempt to change the radio stations in one’s head to a different pain than the one he-or she-doesn’t want to confront. What did you and Mr. Rook quarrel about?”
Whatever guard she’d had up before lowered. In spite of her attitude going in, Heat felt safe and comforted by all this. She walked him through Rook’s accusation about her defensive wall and how it sparked the fight.
“And why do you think that was so charged?”
“He’s been pushing me lately in ways I don’t like.”
“Tell me.”
“Rook’s been hounding me. Insisting on dragging me back over old family issues to investigate my mom’s mur-” Neither of them needed the end of that sentence to fathom the potential significance of what she was revealing. Nikki panicked. She saw herself imprisoned in Therapy World for eternity with no time off for good behavior and immediately tried to buy it back. “But you know,” she said, “people quarrel in relationships. If it’s not one thing it’s another, right?”
“Yet, this was one thing. And not another.”
As the silence crushed her, the therapist waited. And waited.
“What does it mean?” she asked.
“I can’t answer that. All I can do is ask, who were you truly angry with? And, who would be most hurt if you had slept with Don?” He smiled and then looked at the clock behind her. “We’re at the end of our time.”
“Already?” As he picked up her papers and slid them in a file, she said, “So?”
