Eye Sleuth
Page 23
Lanny and Lars left on a short trip to Sweden, the first such venture for Lanny since she was released from the hospital. Lars planned the travel carefully. He knew that sleep deprivation and extended travel schedules could bring on fatigue and emotional swings in TBI victims, even those considered fully recovered. The few e-mails they sent me were filled with good news. Their relationship was deepening and holding. Survivors of traumatic brain injury are different, for their personalities are affected and altered. Often divorce is added to the trauma. A widow, Lanny had escaped divorce and her new friendship with Lars hadn’t been affected. Altered perhaps, but it was resilient and would grow stronger.
My dad always said you learn from experience. Turned out, that’s what Mark Sanders, the suave Chief of Detectives at the Thirteenth Precinct believed. He called with the strangest invitation I’d ever had. I was taken aback. To tell the truth, I was horrified.
“Dr. Kamimura,” he began, “We hope you’ll consider joining the 13th as a civilian consultant.”
My gut reaction, confined to my thoughts, was “No.” Followed by, “No way.”
“I’m not a detective,” I objected immediately.
“Civilian consultants never are.”
“Why…?”
“Why are we asking you?” Sanders didn’t wait for me to speak but briskly listed what he obviously thought were important reasons for the invitation.
“Your optometric training means you have a certain expertise in understanding behavior. In fact, your studies of psychology and pharmacology are excellent preparation for police work. You’re licensed by the state to prescribe pharmaceuticals for the eyes and this means you know the effects of many drugs—including narcotics. All of this gives you valuable insight, no pun intended.” Sanders chuckled at his own wit.
I couldn’t argue with the captain. I’m a behavioral optometrist, one of the specialties in optometry. Everything he said about my training was accurate but I still was against the idea. Sanders wasn’t done.
“Your quick thinking and appropriate action––even when threatened by someone you knew was a murderer––resolved an important case, one that could have had serious ramifications. That’s significant in these days of heightened security. Last but not least, you worked well with my two top detectives, Dan Riley and Zoran Zeissing.”
“But I didn’t do any real detecting,” I protested, thinking of the whirlwind of murder and mayhem that engulfed me from Day One. I winced as I recalled the few efforts I’d made to find connections between the almost nonstop sequence of bizarre happenings. I’d kept putting off any attempt at serious sleuthing, partly because of the pressure of work, partly because I’d been thwarted over something like finding someone’s address when they don’t have a land line and weren’t in the telephone directory.
“Detective Zeissing might not agree that you didn’t do any detecting,” Sanders said. “He recommended you be hired as a civilian consultant because of the way you reasoned your way out of trouble and also for the initiative you showed in visiting Mrs. Wahr.”
Now I really was surprised. Hmm, Zoran Zeissing was a brainiac. If he thought I had some ability, I might mull over the invitation.
“I don’t know,” I said cautiously. “I need time to think about it.”
That got me off the hook for the time being. Every now and then I revisited the question. Was it my civic duty to help? I knew Gus Forkiotis would tell me it was. He’d worked with the Connecticut Police Academy for decades, and other practitioners had followed his lead, sharing their time and expertise. But what could I do to help New York’s police if I did become a civilian consultant? Did I really want to get close to murder and mayhem again? If I said Yes to being a civilian consultant, perhaps I’d work with Detective Dan. Was that a good thing? How much fun would togetherness be if you were chasing perverts?
For the immediate time being, I focused on what I knew. I’d learned I cared enough about Dan to believe what he said about the situation between him and his ex being over. Besides, playing it safe is dangerous. We’d navigated our first major roadblock. Others would undoubtedly come but I had faith that in the future we could negotiate like adults. I trusted Dan. Not bad for someone divorced from a charming liar of an alcoholic gambler.
News about the way I’d thwarted Barnes spread through optometric circles like wild fire. Bob Bertolli called to compliment me and I learned that good-natured man was way more bloodthirsty than me.
“Quick thinking, the way you stopped the bad guy,” Bob congratulated me. “Mind you, I’d never have tried to dislodge his contacts. I’d have delivered a thumb strike. That damages the tender area surrounded by the mandible. I’d have liked to see his eyes glaze over. Why stop there? I’d have wanted the pain to send him unconscious. That’s actually possible.”
“Wow,” I cringed at the gruesome image. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Hey, it’s lifesaving technique for quarrelsome swimmers,” Bob said. “My second choice would be to hook my pinky through the lacrimal bone in one orbit. Okay, that’s really bad, I wouldn’t go that far. Seriously, have you thought about taking karate classes?”
Good advice. I might even follow it. For sure I’ll think about it. I’ll add it to the list, second to the question of becoming a civilian consultant to New York’s 13th Precinct. In the interval between thought, decision and action, it’s onward and upward. Just like old times. The times when danger was indulging in too many pizzas. Hadn’t been old times for so long.
Postscript
Elements of Truth
Behavioral Optometry, a specialty in the field of optometry, is available in more than forty countries. It has helped countless individuals whose eyesight was excellent but whose vision was not. Among them, Luci Baines Johnson, the daughter of President Johnson, and a roll call of professional and amateur sports teams that includes the New York Yankees, Chicago Black Hawks, San Francisco 49ers and U.S. Olympic medalists.
Eye Sleuth has real behavioral optometrists as well as fictional practitioners. The real ones include Drs. Elliott Forrest, Gus Forkiotis (a nationally recognized expert witness who lectured on vision at the Connecticut State Police Academy for decades), Bob Bertolli (also a lecturer at the Connecticut State Police Academy for decades), Beth Ballinger, Beth Bazin, Sam Berne, Steve Gallop, Paul Harris, Bob Sanet, Simon Grbevski (Australia) and Owen Leigh (England). The Executive Director of the OEP Foundation (www.oepf.org), Bob Williams, is very real and ever tireless in behalf of behavioral optometry. The College of Optometry at SUNY is one of the twenty colleges in the U.S. that offers training in this specialty.
Happily, the magnificent stained glass dome at the National Arts Club is unscathed. The former Friends Meeting House on Gramercy Park South, empty for many years, was indeed part of the Underground Railroad. The building is now the Brotherhood Synagogue.
The number of victims of traumatic brain injury (TBI) caused by auto, sports and industrial accidents grows with tragic speed, two million annually in the U.S. alone. Some survivors are able, with the right support, to return to active lives. Their families, health care professionals and caregivers help in many different ways. The Brain Injury Association of America’s website provides good information: (http://www.biausa.org/).
NORA, the Neuro-Optometric Rehabilitation Association, is an international multidisciplinary organization established in 1989 to provide and advocate for vision rehabilitation and the habilitation of neurologically challenged individuals (www.nora.cc/).
Recipes
Lanny’s Swedish Meatballs
1 lb ground beef
1/2 cup diced onion
3/4 cup bread crumbs (spelt or whole wheat work as well as white bread)
1/2 cup milk (soy or rice or almond liquid can be used)
1 egg
1 TBS parsley, if dried; if fresh, chop fine & use lavishly
1 TBS soy sauce or spicy sauce of choice
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 lb of mushrooms, chopped & sautéed lightly in butter
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup flour (whole wheat or spelt works)
1 tsp paprika
2 cups boiling water
3/4 cup sour cream
Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).
Lightly grease a 9x13-inch baking dish.
Combine ground beef, chopped onion, milk, egg and bread crumbs.
Season with parsley, soy or spicy sauce, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper.
Mix well.
Shape into small balls and place on baking dish.
Bake for 30 minutes, turning meatballs so they brown evenly.
Sauce: In a saucepan, combine oil, flour, paprika, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp pepper. Add sautéed mushrooms and cook over medium heat until bubbling, then gradually blend in hot water and sour cream until smooth. When meatballs have cooked 30 minutes, pour sauce over the top, and return to the oven for 20 minutes. Stir a few times.
Green beans or a salad go well with this. You can also have noodles. Yoko likes Tinkyada brown rice noodles, which are wheat & gluten-free. Lanny and Lars like egg noodles.
Yoko’s Beef Shabu-Shabu
3-inch dried kombu (kelp)
1 lb Chinese cabbage, chopped
1/4 lb scallions, sliced thin
1 block tofu, cut into bite-size pieces
1 enoki mushroom, cut in half
1/4 lb carrot, cut into thin round slices
l lb fresh spinach (wash well by soaking in a bowl of water)
1 lb sirloin beef, sliced very thin.
Fill a deep electric pan or a medium skillet two-thirds full with water. Soak kombu in the water, preferably for 30 minutes. Arrange the ingredients on a large plate. Set the electric pan, ingredients and serving bowls with dipping sauce at the table. Heat the water and remove the kombu just before the water comes to a boil. Put a slice of beef in the boiling soup and swish it gently back and forth in the boiling soup until the meat changes color to desired degree of doneness. Dip meat in a sauce of your choice (see suggestion below) and enjoy. Add the vegetables piece by piece to the boiling water, which is gradually becoming soup, and simmer them for a few minutes until they are done the way you want them. Enjoy the veggies dipped in the sauce as well.
Yoko buys a bottle of sesame dipping sauce but you can use any sauce you like or make your own. Here’s one traditional recipe:
1/3 cup white sesame seeds
3 TBSP mirin, a sweet, yellowish condiment (12% alcohol)
1-1/2 TBSP sugar
2 TBSP rice vinegar
3-1/2 TBSP soy sauce
1/2 tsp grated garlic
1/2 - 2/3 cup dashi soup (dashi is tuna soup stock, but you could use any stock you like)
Grind sesame seeds well. Add mirin gradually over the sesame seeds and mix. Add sugar, rice vinegar and soy sauce to the sauce. Add grated garlic and mix well. Pour in dashi stock gradually, stirring well.
About the Author
Hazel Dawkins, an editor-writer who started out in London’s newspaper world, has worked in Paris and New York and now is based in Greenfield, Massachusetts.
Her factual books on behavioral optometry, a specialty in optometry that is available in forty countries, are published by (and available from) the OEP Foundation in California, the professional organization for optometrists (http://www.oepf.org/).
Eye Sleuth is a cozy of a mystery that introduces Dr Yoko Kamimura, a behavioral optometrist in New York. In it, Yoko is the unwilling center of mayhem and murder. The second Yoko mystery, Eye Wit, is a grittier read (think Miss Marple on steroids) created in amiable collaboration with Dennis Berry of Oregon.
All of her books are available at: http://www.murderprose.com.