Shrink Rap

by Robert B. Parker

  I glanced around. There were no other pictures.

  “And the groom?” I said.

  “He dumped me a year and a half ago.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said. “Any children?”

  “No.”

  “So, you live here alone?”

  “Me and Sam,” she said and nodded at the dog. “Short for Samurai. He’s a Japanese dog.”

  “I know,” I said. “He’s lovely.”

  “You got a dog?”

  “Yes, I do, a bull terrier named Rosie.”

  “Dogs are great,” Kim said. “You want some coffee? It’s all made.”

  “Coffee would be nice,” I said.

  “I have Equal or sugar, and skim milk. I don’t have any cream.”

  “Skim milk,” I said, “would be perfect, and two little thingies of Equal.”

  “We’re all the same, aren’t we?” Kim said. “Worried sick about our figures, how we look. You married?”

  “No,” I said.

  “So you’re looking for a man too,” Kim said.

  I did one of those little noncommittal smile-nods I’d seen Copeland do.

  “All the men I like are gay,” Kim said. “All the straight men are jerks.”

  “It’s hard to generalize,” I said. “You’re in therapy with Dr. Melvin?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “In the course of my investigation,” I said, “I learned that you are a patient of Dr. John Melvin.”

  “So?”

  “I don’t wish to pry into your therapy, but could you tell me a bit about Dr. Melvin?”

  “Why?”

  “I’d rather leave it vague,” I said. “Until we substantiate things.”

  “Are you investigating him?”

  I did the smile-nod again. I was glad I’d discovered it.

  “Has someone made a complaint or something?”

  “Is there anything someone might complain about?” I said.

  “Of course not. I just can’t figure out why you’re investigating him.”

  “Has he ever been, ah, inappropriate in your therapy?”

  “Inappropriate?”

  I nodded.

  Kim didn’t answer me. Her pretty, inexpressive face pinched a little around the mouth and at the corners of her eyes.

  “Do you and he talk about your divorce?” I said.

  “Of course. That’s why I went to see him.”

  “And he’s helped?”

  “Oh yes, he’s helped me a lot.”

  “Anything you don’t like about him?” I said.

  “Of course not. He’s an absolutely wonderful man.”

  “Is he expensive?” I said.

  “Paying the cost is part of the commitment,” Kim said.

  “I’ve heard that,” I said. “Does your health insurance cover it?”

  Kim shook her head.

  “Do you earn a lot of money?” I said.

  I glanced around the room as if it were obviously expensive.

  “Alimony,” she said.

  “Dr. Melvin, too?”

  Kim’s face was suddenly infused with energy.

  “The son of a bitch didn’t get out of it cheap,” Kim said.

  I smiled. “I wish I’d had your divorce lawyer,” I said.

  It was a lie. I didn’t want Richie to send me money. Though he did sometimes, because he felt like it. You shared the hard times, he would say. You might as well share the good. It was a myth that Richie liked to perpetuate. There had been bad emotional times. But there was always money.

  “I hope it kills him every month to send that check.”

  I nodded. “What’s your ex’s name?” I said.

  “Kerry Crawford, the bastard. It used to be Kim and Kerry, you know. It sounded good.”

  “It does sound good,” I said. “Do you know a man named Dirk Beals?”

  Again the vacant little face got pinched at the corners.

  “Who’s he?”

  “Drives a black Porsche Boxster.”

  “Never heard of him,” Kim said.

  She put her hand on the Akita’s massive head and patted him slowly. She probably wasn’t aware she did it. The Akita had no reaction. He sat in his large containment and looked at me with his pale expressionless eyes.

  If I weren’t a heroic girl detective, I might have been a little afraid of him.

  “Can I get you any more coffee?” Kim said.

  What she meant was It’s time for you to go now. I don’t want to talk with you anymore.

  “No,” I said. “Thanks, I’ve got to run.”

  I reached over carefully and scratched the Akita behind his right ear. I don’t know if he liked it. He permitted it.

  “Dr. Melvin isn’t in some kind of trouble, is he?”

  “What kind could he be in?” I said.

  “He couldn’t be in any kind, unless some patient is lying about him.”

  “What kind of lies might they tell?” I said.

  “I don’t know. There isn’t anything. I mean he’s a fabulous shrink.”

  “I’m sure he is,” I said. “Do you see him regularly?”

  “Twice a week,” Kim said. “Mondays and Thursdays.”

  “Mornings?” I said.

  “Evenings, actually.”

  “I didn’t think he had office hours in the evening,” I said.

  Her faced pinched again. “Dr. Melvin makes time for me in the evening,” Kim said. “It’s more convenient.”

  “That’s good of him,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “What does your ex-husband do that he can pay you all this alimony?” I said.

  “He’s a real estate broker,” Kim said.

  “In Concord?”

  Kim shook her head. “Arlington,” she said.

  “Well, it’s good he can afford it,” I said.

  “He’d better,” Kim said.

  Kerry Crawford, Arlington.

  Chapter 38

  Sonya Burke crossed her legs in the straight armchair across from Dr. Melvin, aware that she was showing a lot of leg.

  “He dumped me a year and a half ago,” I said.

  Dr. Melvin wore a beautiful black suit with a white shirt. The shirt had a Windsor collar and French cuffs. His cuff links were black onyx with a small diamond chip in the center. He nodded gently.

  “But he’s paying for it,” I said.

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “Alimony,” I said.

  “Ah,” he said and smiled a little. “Does that make you feel less angry toward him?”

  “I’m not angry toward him,” I said. “But if he’s going to dump me he’s going to pay for the privilege.”

  Melvin nodded.

  “Besides.” I tried a grim smile. “It supports me while I look for another man.”

  Melvin nodded.

  “It seems that all the men I like are gay. The straight men are jerks.”

  “And you need straight men,” Melvin said.

  “Of course.”

  “Because you need sex.”

  “Sure.”

  “More than occasional sex with Richie?” Melvin said.

  “Yes.”

  “You’re an attractive woman,” Melvin said. “That should not be an issue.”

  “I don’t want to sleep with jerks,” I said.

  “Who do you want to sleep with?”

  I felt a tiny thrill in the center of my stomach. The bait was out there, floating on the surface.

  “Men with brains,” I said, “and maybe a little style, some authority.”

  “Talk about that a little more.”

  “I like men I can respect,” I said.

  “What do you respect?”

  “I like men I can look up to. It’s probably what drew me to Richie.”

  “What did you admire in him?” Melvin said.

  He was perfectly still, watching me closely, his legs crossed at the ankle, leaning back in his chair, his hands folded over his
stomach. I thought a minute.

  “He was, he is, so in control of himself and his own life.”

  Melvin nodded. His big dark eyes stayed steady on me. He raised his eyebrows.

  “I loved that in him,” I said.

  Melvin waited.

  “But, with us,” I said, “he wouldn’t take control.”

  “Did you?”

  “Take control? No. I couldn’t. I didn’t want it. I wanted him to give us direction. He’d always say, ‘whatever you’d like.’ For Christ’s sake, I wanted to like what he liked.”

  I thought I was chumming the water. But I had the uneasy sense that what had begun as a story to trap him had slithered awfully close to a therapeutic admission.

  “Have there been other men in your life like that?” Melvin said.

  “My father…” My father? Where the hell am I going? “My father probably made every decision my mother was ever involved in.”

  “And with you?”

  “He always supported anything I wanted to do.”

  “But he didn’t tell you what that should be?”

  “No.”

  “Like Richie.”

  “My God,” I said. “Am I a living breathing cliché? Do I suffer from Oedipal conflict?”

  Melvin smiled.

  “Parents often have a great influence on us when we’re children,” he said. “And the influences sometimes linger.”

  “Oh, God,” I said. “That’s such a shrinky thing to say.”

  Melvin smiled at me. His voice was kind and almost amused.

  “Miss Burke,” he said. “I am a shrink.”

  I almost liked him at that moment.

  “My mother was always bossy and mouthy,” I said. “And if you listened to her you’d think she was completely in charge of everything.”

  “But she wasn’t,” Melvin said.

  “No. In fact she was scared of nearly everything and really wasn’t very good at anything and needed him to, you know, take complete care of her.”

  “And of you?”

  “Yes. I was always uneasy when he was at work. I felt as if he were the adult, and I had been left alone with another kid.”

  “He was a very powerful man.”

  I nodded.

  “And you want to be with someone like him?”

  “I guess,” I said.

  “And do you want to be like your mother?”

  “God, no,” I said.

  Melvin smiled slightly and sat back. All his motions were minimal, but the force of our interaction made them larger than they were. I waited. He didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say so I waited.

  Finally, he said, “So you’d like to have a husband like your father, but you don’t want to be a wife like your mother.”

  “Sort of a rock and a hard place,” I said.

  He nodded.

  Chapter 39

  I took Rosie for her morning stroll up Summer Street to the bridge, and back, and when I got to my building a man got out of a Porsche Boxster and spoke to me.

  “Sunny Randall?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “My name is Dirk Beals. I wonder if we might talk.”

  He was slender and dark and much taller than I was. His hair had receded enough to qualify for Rogaine. He had on small round wire-rimmed glasses, and a very expensive gray tweed jacket. A long black wool scarf was wrapped around his neck a couple of times, with the loose end draped over his left shoulder.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Perhaps we could talk in your office?”

  He paid no attention to Rosie, who was sniffing his ankles. I had made the bed before we went out for our walk. There was no lingerie laying around.

  “Certainly,” I said. “Home, studio, and office.”

  We went up in what used to be the freight elevator without speaking, and got off at my floor and went into my loft. I let Rosie off the leash and she went to her water dish. The loft looked great. The sun flooded in through the skylight and gleamed through the high industrial windows along my front wall. Beals looked around quite carefully, but he made no comment. I had turned on my coffeemaker before Rosie and I had gone for our walk, and the smell of fresh coffee perfumed the place.

  “I’m having coffee,” I said. “Would you care for some?”

  “No.”

  I gestured at one of the armchairs in the window bay, and went to my counter and put coffee, milk, and sugar in a stainless-steel mug. Beals didn’t sit. He stood where he was and continued to look around the room. I sat on a stool and swung around so my back was against the counter.

  “What can I do for you,” I said.

  “You only have one room?” he said.

  “But it’s a very big one,” I said.

  Rosie finished drinking and looked at Beals for a moment and then went down the length of the loft and jumped up onto my bed and lay down and looked up with her head resting on her front paws.

  “You live here alone?”

  “Of course not,” I said. “I live here with Rosie.”

  “Where is she?”

  “The dog,” I said.

  He looked as if the answer annoyed him. He had a petulant self-satisfied face that looked like almost anything might annoy him.

  “What can I do for you,” I said.

  “I’m an attorney,” he said.

  “That’s not my fault,” I said.

  He was not amused.

  “I understand you’ve been talking to Kimberly Crawford.”

  “Oh?”

  “Ms. Crawford’s emotional stability is precarious,” Beals said. “Harassment will endanger it.”

  “I’m sure it will,” I said, “if anyone ever harasses her.”

  “Don’t be cute, missy,” Beals said.

  Missy?

  “My sister is cute too,” I said.

  “I warn you right now,” Beals said, “you are not to talk to or see Ms. Crawford again.”

  “Is she your client?” I said.

  “She is the patient of my client.”

  “So you represent John Melvin,” I said.

  It rocked him a little. He started to speak and stopped and considered for a moment.

  “Who I represent does not concern you,” he said.

  “But you know Kim Crawford,” I said.

  “That doesn’t concern you either.”

  “Isn’t it odd for a shrink’s lawyer to know a shrink’s patients?”

  His face got red, and I watched, sort of fascinated, as the redness spread up over his forehead and darkened where he was bald.

  After a moment, he said, “I don’t believe you quite understand what you are dealing with here.”

  “I do,” I said. “I’m dealing with a pompous jerk. But it’s okay. I’m used to it.”

  “You are putting yourself in a dangerous position, missy.”

  He said it again!

  “Why?”

  “Because you are involved in something you don’t understand. With powerful men that can make things happen.” He paused for effect. “Bad things, if necessary.”

  “What am I involved with?” I said.

  He looked at me without speaking. He must have really needed the glasses. The lenses were so thick they distorted his eyes.

  “What am I involved with?” I said.

  He stepped closer to me. He was breathing audibly. And something was twitching along his right cheekbone.

  “You are involved, bitch, with floating facedown and naked in the Charles River.”

  His face was slightly moist. I put my cup down and stood.

  “Hold on a minute,” I said. “I want to show you something.”

  He didn’t answer. I walked past him and behind my kitchen counter and opened the broom closet and took out a double-barreled ten-gauge sawed-off shotgun that my father had once taken from a drug dealer, and given to me, illegally, when I went into business for myself. I brought the weapon up to my shoulder and squinted at his face along t
he barrel. His eyes widened.

  “You,” I said, “are involved in me blowing your goddamned head off.”

  “Don’t point that at me,” he said.

  “Why don’t you and Melvin want me talking with Kim Crawford?” I said.

  He shook his head. I kept the shotgun pointed at his face.

  “Don’t,” he said.

  Then he turned suddenly and ran from my loft. I let him go. When he was gone, I locked my door and put the shotgun on the counter and breathed quietly for a while until my heart stopped pounding.

  Chapter 40

  When I went to see Melanie Joan, I brought Rosie. I didn’t want to leave her alone. There had been something quite disturbing in Dirk Beals’s damp preppy menace. When we came into Melanie Joan’s apartment, Spike was on the couch with his feet on the coffee table, reading Ring magazine.

  “Are you absolutely sure you’re gay?” I said to him.

  “Don’t tell the guys at the Design Center,” Spike said.

  Rosie jumped up on the couch and lapped Spike’s face. Melanie Joan came out of the room she wrote in.

  “He cooks,” Melanie Joan said to me. “He cleans up. It’s like having a large maid.”

  Spike finally got Rosie to stop lapping him and she settled down on the couch next to him. Melanie Joan and I sat in facing armchairs on either side of the picture window that looked out over Copley Square.

  “Everything been all right?” I said.

  “Yes,” she said. “He hasn’t made an appearance.”

  I felt a little jab of disappointment. I had half hoped that Melvin would have given Spike a chance at him. I couldn’t ask Spike to intervene, but if it was beyond my control… Oh well.

  “What do you hear from your agent?” I said.

  “Tony?”

  “Yes.”

  “No one has gotten back to us on the pitches,” Melanie Joan said.

  We were silent, looking out the window. The Copley Plaza Hotel, built in the days of grand hotels, and still stately, was diagonally across from us.

  “He call you?” Melanie Joan said.

  I shook my head.

  “Not for a while,” I said.

  We looked at the Copley Plaza some more.

  “You have to remember,” Melanie Joan said. “Tony is a Hollywood guy.”

  “Which makes him automatically insincere?” I said.

  Without looking up from his magazine, Spike said, “You can fit all the sincerity in Hollywood on the head of a pin with enough room left over for three caraway seeds and an agent’s heart.”