Shrink Rap

by Robert B. Parker

  “My father?”

  “Sure, he was a hell of a cop,” Lee said. “He still knows how.”

  “I can’t run to my father, Lee.”

  He nodded. “Me,” he said. “On my own time?”

  “Thank you, no. But I mean it,” I said. “Thank you.”

  Lee shrugged. “There’s nothing wrong with knowing what you can do and getting help when you need help,” he said. “Would you ask for help moving a piano?”

  “Not the same,” I said. “I’m not in the piano moving business.”

  “Even piano movers don’t usually move them alone,” Lee said.

  I smiled at him. “Oh shut up,” I said.

  “Ah,” Lee said. “Now I get it.”

  Chapter 53

  I took Rosie to stay with Richie again. I felt safer when she was there.

  In my car with my brand-new front windshield, I brought Melanie Joan over to a large white ugly building on Soldiers Field Road, to talk with Joyce Kulhawik on Channel 4. After she was through and we were in the parking lot, Melanie Joan said, “Is there somewhere around here we can get lunch?”

  “Across the river,” I said.

  “Cambridge?”

  “Sure. How fancy do you want?”

  “Oh,” Melanie Joan said. “Just coffee and a sandwich.”

  We ate on Huron Avenue in a little place called Full Moon, near a drugstore and across from a bank. I had egg salad on wheat bread. Melanie Joan ordered tuna on white. We both had coffee.

  “This is lovely,” Melanie Joan said, “just what I had in mind.”

  I nodded.

  “We need to talk,” I said.

  “Of course, Sunny.”

  “I need to know more about you and John Melvin,” I said.

  I watched her face close down.

  “What more could you possibly need to know?”

  “How did you and he begin dating?” I said.

  “I told you. We met during therapy.”

  “Isn’t that highly inappropriate?” I said.

  “Oh pooh, you’re starting to sound like a shrink,” Melanie Joan said.

  “We need to talk about this,” I said.

  Melanie Joan put her cup down so hard that coffee spilled onto the tabletop.

  “I will not talk about it,” she said.

  She tried to wipe up the coffee with a small paper napkin and wiped a little coffee off the tabletop and into her lap. She tried to blot her lap, but the wet napkin fell apart. She stared at it for a moment and then began to cry. It was loud full-out crying, the kind where your shoulders shake and you wail and have trouble catching your breath. I waited until she got her breathing under control. People in the restaurant looked at us covertly.

  “How did you and he move from therapy to romance?” I said.

  She was still sniveling with her head down. She didn’t look at me. She shook her head.

  “You’ve already told me,” I said, “how he stood by and watched you being assaulted.”

  She nodded.

  “How could this be worse to tell me?”

  She shook her head. I waited. She didn’t speak. I drank some coffee. Melanie Joan sat staring at her hands, which were folded in her lap. She had stopped crying. I waited a little more. The waitress refilled our coffee cups, trying hard not to look at Melanie Joan.

  When the waitress left, I said to Melanie Joan, “You’re angry about the assault. But you’re, what, ashamed about the romance?”

  “Embarrassed,” Melanie Joan said so softly that I leaned a little forward to hear.

  “Because you feel foolish,” I said.

  “I disgust myself,” she said.

  I leaned even closer to hear her.

  “Melanie Joan,” I said. “I believe he tried to kill me.”

  She nodded.

  “He would do that,” she said.

  “I think he might have killed a young woman from Groveland.”

  “He could have,” Melanie Joan said.

  “If I can get proof that he did it, you won’t have to worry about him anymore.”

  Melanie Joan had not moved. She kept her hands folded in her lap, her head down. Her coffee was unsipped in front of her.

  “Why do I have to… Can’t you catch him without me?”

  “I need to know as much as I can about him.”

  “I will never testify in public,” she said.

  “Even if it would put him away?”

  “I will never testify,” she said.

  “Okay,” I said. “Can you at least tell me?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “It might help me catch him,” I said.

  “I’m a famous person,” she said. “I do not wish to become a tabloid joke.”

  “I won’t tell anyone,” I said. “I promise.”

  Melanie Joan stood up suddenly. She still didn’t look at me. She put the wet balled useless napkin on the table.

  “We’ll do it in the car,” she said.

  She turned away quickly and walked out of the restaurant. I put a twenty-dollar bill on the counter by the cash register.

  “Keep the change,” I said to whoever could hear me, and went out after Melanie Joan.

  Chapter 54

  “I had been married twice,” Melanie Joan said, staring straight ahead as I drove along Huron Avenue, “and failed both times.”

  “I don’t have a dandy track record myself,” I said.

  “You’ve only been married once.”

  “And had several failed affairs.”

  “That’s because you won’t let go of the first marriage.”

  I shrugged.

  “Do you want children?” Melanie Joan said.

  “I think so.”

  “And the clock is beginning to tick,” Melanie Joan said.

  I smiled at her, though she was still staring at Huron Avenue and I don’t think she saw me.

  “Could we talk about John Melvin?” I said.

  “And I went to see Dr. Melvin because I heard that he was especially good with women in my situation.”

  We stopped at Fresh Pond Parkway and waited for the light.

  “He was wonderful. I talked. He listened. Do you know how enticing that is, to have a man listen?”

  The light changed and I turned left onto the parkway.

  “Did you ever have a man listen to you?” Melanie Joan said. “Really listen?”

  “Richie listened,” I said. “But when I got through with whatever I was saying, he would say that I should do what I wanted to.”

  “And you didn’t like that?” Melanie Joan said.

  “Partly,” I said. “Tell me more about John Melvin.”

  “I shared with him some of my fantasies. He helped me see that without a man in my life I feared being abandoned. And with a man in my life, I feared being controlled.”

  We went past Mt. Auburn Hospital and curved around the head of the Charles toward Soldiers Field Road.

  “And then, one session, about three months after I started seeing him, he stood up from his desk where he sat and came around and stood behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. And started to massage my shoulders. I guess I tensed a bit. It was so unexpected. He said I was very stiff and tight. He said I should lie on his couch and he would give me something to help me relax. I was hesitant.”

  Melanie Joan spoke slowly and carefully and formally, as if she were giving a seminar.

  “He told me that the heart of any therapy depended on a bond of trust between the patient and the therapist, and that I needed to trust him.”

  We passed Channel 4 again, and passed the Harvard Stadium complex. Girls in plaid skirts were playing field hockey. Melanie Joan was becoming more and more lost in the story she was telling. I was so silent I barely breathed.

  “So I lay down on the couch, and he gave me an injection.”

  She stopped. I could hear her breathing.

  “I could see and hear and feel,” she said.

 
I waited, listening to her breathe. She stared straight ahead through the windshield. The car seemed as if there were too much air in it. Melanie Joan seemed to be inside herself now.

  Her voice, when she spoke again, was very small and soft, and uninflected.

  “It’s not so easy to undress someone who is just lying there. While he did it, he told me that because I trusted him, I could allow him to control me completely. And doing that, I would overcome my fears.”

  “And?” I said, finally.

  “And then he took off all his clothes.”

  I waited. She didn’t speak or look at me.

  “And?” I said.

  Her voice shook as she spoke.

  “And he fucked me,” she said.

  It was where I had known we were going. The river on our left, with the sun shining on it, looked cleaner than I knew it was. There were joggers on the esplanade, jogging on sanely. There were dogs and Frisbees. The traffic was light on Storrow Drive. Across the river, on Memorial Drive, it was even lighter.

  “Why didn’t you tell the police?”

  She shook her head.

  “It became a regular part of our therapy,” she said.

  I went off Storrow Drive at the Kenmore exit and pulled in on a hydrant around the corner on Bay State Road. I turned in the seat and stared at her. I tried to speak gently.

  “You let him do it again?”

  “I liked it,” she said.

  Chapter 55

  The car trembled faintly as the motor idled. Across the street from where we sat was the former hotel, now a dorm, where Eugene O’Neill had died. Melanie Joan was now looking right at me. Okay, I’ve told it to you, now what are you going to do with it!

  “That’s why you’re so afraid of him,” I said.

  She nodded.

  “You’re afraid you’ll give in, that you’ll let him do it again.”

  She nodded. I was silent.

  “What was it you liked?” I said after a while.

  “The Master-Slave thing,” she said.

  My mouth was dry. I felt the way I had felt in Copeland’s office the day I had cried. I wanted to cry now. Something fearsome and misshapen had jumped suddenly out of the dark and hissed.

  “And you married him,” I said.

  “I did.”

  “But things changed?”

  “Not at first.”

  “Did he… I’m sorry. It’s not something I need to know.”

  Melanie Joan smiled without any hint of pleasure.

  “I’ve started,” she said. “You may as well get it all. Yes, even after he married me he still gave me a shot.”

  “Do you know what it was?”

  “The drug? Xactil,” she said.

  I didn’t know quite what to ask her. I knew what I wanted to know, but I had gotten so deep into the bottom of her psyche that I wasn’t sure what I had a right to ask.

  I settled finally on, “So what happened?”

  “The Zack wasn’t enough,” Melanie Joan said. “We started to do… other things. And after a while they weren’t enough and he wanted to pass me around to his friends.”

  The ultimate control.

  It had begun to rain a little. Not very hard, a small misting rain that gathered on the windshield, and made the pedestrians, mostly B.U. students, hunch up a little. The cars passing us had their wipers on intervals. Most had their headlights on. I decided not to ask what the other things were.

  “Whatever we had done before, and I knew it was sick, but it was a sickness we shared, it was just the two of us. When he wanted to share me with his friends I felt devalued.”

  I might have felt devalued sooner than that. But each to her own pathology.

  “And the friends were Dirk Beals and Barry Clay?”

  “Yes.”

  If she testified against any of the men, her own craziness would be on display. She was famous enough to become, eventually, a joke in Leno’s opening monologue.

  “And Melvin would watch.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did this ever consummate?”

  “No. The first time it happened was when I ran away.”

  “You weren’t drugged,” I said.

  “No, I think it made him feel more powerful to simply require it of me, without Zack.”

  The rain no longer misted on the windshield. Now it coalesced and slid tangibly down the glass. The B.U. kids hurried as they walked, hugging buildings when they could. Umbrellas had appeared. Hoods were up on sweatshirts.

  “And you never told anyone?” I said.

  “No. I had no one to tell.”

  “You need help with this,” I said.

  “I have you.”

  I reached across and patted her hands where they lay folded in her lap.

  “You need more than me,” I said.

  Chapter 56

  “Xactil,” Dr. Copeland said, “is often used as a preoperative tranquilizer. Or for certain procedures where the patient needs to be relaxed and pain-free but responsive to directions.”

  I was in his office, sitting in the chair, leaning toward him, with my clasped hands pressed against my chin.

  “Is it dangerous?”

  “An overdose is lethal,” he said.

  “Is there much margin for error?”

  “Some,” Dr. Copeland said. “But an overdose is not unheard of.”

  “What’s the result of an overdose?”

  “Pallor, cold sweat, respiratory impairment, loss of consciousness, death.”

  “Is it always injected?” I said.

  “No. Injection is the fastest-acting, and probably the most precise in terms of dosage. But it can be taken by mouth in tablet form, by intranasal spray, or in suppository form.”

  “John Melvin has injected at least one patient with Zack,” I said. “And had sex with her.”

  “You know this?”

  “I know this.”

  “Then he should have his license revoked,” Copeland said.

  “I think he has done this with more than one patient.”

  “These things are very rarely one time only,” Copeland said. “Can you prove that he did this?”

  “To my own satisfaction,” I said.

  “More than that?”

  “No.”

  “That’s not enough for me to take to the licensing board,” Dr. Copeland said.

  “Nor for me to put him in jail,” I said. “I think he OD’d one of his patients.”

  “Fatally?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is your evidence?”

  I was silent.

  “What is said in here does not leave here,” Dr. Copeland said.

  I told him about Melanie Joan.

  “And the patient who died?”

  I told him about Sally Millwood.

  “Autopsy?”

  “The mother refused,” I said. “Though maybe she could be convinced to change her mind.”

  Dr. Copeland shook his head.

  “Zack only lasts a few hours in the system,” he said.

  “I also think he tried to kill me,” I said.

  Dr. Copeland raised his eyebrows, which, I had come to learn, was an indirect invitation to say more. I told him about Dirk Beals, and about the attack on the street.

  “And still you pursue him,” Dr. Copeland said.

  “I do,” I said.

  “I cannot make unsubstantiated charges against a colleague even if I believe they’re true.”

  “And you do?”

  “I would tend to believe things you told me,” Dr. Copeland said.

  I almost blushed. We sat together quietly. Dr. Copeland seemed capable of perfect stillness for any length of time. He reminded me of Richie that way.

  “Is there an antidote?” I said after a while.

  “Yes. Dilazaplin.”

  “How is that administered?”

  “Normally, it is injected. But like Zack, there are formulations for oral, nasal, and rectal administratio
n.”

  I sat back. Copeland watched me as if everything I did were a clue.

  “Can it be taken preventively?”

  “So that if you are administered Zack it won’t work?” Dr. Copeland said.

  “Yes.”

  “I think so, but we are reaching the limits of my pharmacology. Before I would say yes or no I’d have to consult a specialist.”

  “Do you have one in mind?” I said.

  Dr. Copeland nodded.

  “I do,” he said. “I’ll call him.”

  “And let me know?”

  “Call me tomorrow,” Dr. Copeland said.

  He sat a little forward in his chair and folded his hands on the edge of his desk.

  “I will remind you of something you certainly know,” he said. “If any of this is true, you are dealing with a dangerous man.”

  “I know,” I said. “But I have a big edge on him.”

  Again the raised eyebrows.

  “He’ll hold me in contempt because I’m a woman, and it will make him underestimate me.”

  “As long as you don’t underestimate him,” Dr. Copeland said.

  He shifted slightly in his chair and half glanced at his watch, which I now knew was the indirect way of saying the fifty minutes were up. I stood.

  “A funny thing,” I said.

  He cocked his head.

  “When Melanie Joan told me about the control business between her and Melvin…”

  I stopped. He waited.

  “I… it still bothers me.”

  He nodded neutrally.

  “Maybe when this is over I should look into that a little.”

  Dr. Copeland nodded his head slowly and smiled slightly.

  “Maybe,” he said.

  I hesitated at the door for a moment, then I opened it and went out.

  Chapter 57

  I called Spike from my car.

  “As soon as I hang up,” I said, “get over to Melanie Joan’s, and stay with her.”

  “Okay.”

  “Melanie Joan doesn’t leave her apartment without you,” I said. “Not for a minute, not with anyone else. I don’t care who. She leaves her apartment, you are with her.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do you still have that big, icky .45?” I said.

  “A classic,” Spike said. “Colt. Government issue.”

  “Carry it,” I said.