He exhaled audibly. I read it to mean close enough. “The day of the Dome Fire? I saw another patient that morning. Before everything got crazy. She was a companion.”
I frowned the frown of someone continuously on the periphery of comprehension. I said, “For an elderly person? Disabled? That kind of companion?”
He smiled in a way that was either patronizing or ironic. I felt it was patronizing, but I chose to go with ironic.
He said, “No. Think escort, but longer term.”
“Oh. Okay. Sex?”
“Sex, yes,” he said. “But not just sex.”
Of course not. Probably acrobatics, too. And trapezes. Like Cirque du Soleil.
“There’s more,” Alan said.
“I am trying to keep up,” I said. I was sure that sounded snarky because I was beginning to feel snarky. I was also thinking that Alan Gregory’s caseload was much more interesting than mine. By, like, a factor of ten. Until he became my patient.
My caseload was much more interesting with him in it.
“The woman, the companion I was treating, resembled Lauren, especially from behind. Hair. Body type. Right after it happened, after she was shot, I thought there might have been some confusion that morning. For Diane, I mean.
“The woman, the companion, had just left my office when Lauren came to see me. I thought Diane might have somehow known the companion was there, but had not seen her leave. And had not seen Lauren arrive.”
I leaned forward into the neutral zone between us. “Are you suggesting that Diane wanted to shoot one of your patients? The companion? She thought she was shooting that patient, but she ended up shooting your wife by mistake?”
“Perhaps, but it’s irrelevant.”
What? “How can that be irrelevant?”
“The woman mattered. That she was my patient? That didn’t matter. Diane didn’t care. But later at the hospital? When I was trying to make sense of it? That’s what I was thinking—that Diane had confused my patient for my wife, or my wife for my patient.”
“Can I ask why Diane might have wanted to shoot your patient?”
“Diane thought the woman was her husband’s companion. Was jeopardizing their marriage.”
“Raoul? Your patient was Raoul’s companion?”
“Yes. She was Raoul’s paid mistress, his … concubine. Who happened to be my patient. But I didn’t know those details that morning.”
“Happened to be your patient? That feels like a coincidence to you?” I allowed incredulity to give heft to my confrontation. How much? Too much. Were my incredulity water, I’d used an amount sufficient to float an aircraft carrier out of dry dock.
“I know. The chicken and the egg problem is murky,” he said.
Murky? “But to you it feels irrelevant?”
“It’s easy to get distracted by the pieces. This situation has alluring parts, things that sparkle. Don’t get transfixed by them.”
Are you kidding me? “But now? Now that you’ve thought about it, you are no longer sure that Diane intended to shoot the companion? Is that correct?”
He said, “No, not a hundred percent certain. But I know things now I didn’t know then. Raoul was going broke, fast. Bad bets in his business. They, Diane and Raoul, had been wealthy for as long as I’d known them. Diane may have snapped from stress. Long-term stress. PTSD. And acute stress, too, the companion/mistress thing. The going-broke thing. And the pregnancy and STD thing.”
“What? I don’t think I know about the STD thing.”
“You’d heard rumors about the pregnancy. Well, she had an STD to boot.”
My mouth was hanging open. I closed it. Volitionally. There were lots of sparkly things. I was tempted to get lost in the details and, if I did, I would completely trample any psychological momentum of our work. I said, “I may come back to the glitter later. But now? I need a clarification. When you say you think Diane snapped, do you mean psychotic-snapped?”
“Hard to say,” he said. “That’s where Mary-Louise Parker came in. Along with the Louboutins and … Did you know Diane was wearing a cocktail dress that night? For no reason. Purple organza.”
Is organza a fabric people wear to the Oscars? Or to the prom? I did not know how to respond. The little car with a K handgun and a cocktail dress and a glioma and STDs and Mary-Louise Parker all showing up together in my office tied my tongue into a complete twist.
Oh my God.
He is displaying the sparkly stuff so that I don’t notice something else.
Alan is part of it. Oh my dear bleeding God. He did have motive.
This is about him. That’s what he’s telling me.
He knew damn well I’d need supervision about this.
That’s why he told me I couldn’t get it.
20
ALAN
MY PRACTICE CONTINUED TO WITHER. For a psychotherapist all publicity isn’t good publicity.
My first new patient of the new year—my only referral in over three months—was scheduled for the morning of Valentine’s Day. She would be my sole patient that day.
The red light indicating my intake’s arrival came on ten minutes early. I didn’t see a reason to delay. I walked out to the waiting room.
“Alan,” he said.
I closed my eyes and cursed silently. “Elliot,” I said. My mind jumped back to my contentious conversation with Sam over New Year’s, and his revelation that the maybe-surveillance that was maybe focused on me maybe came from Elliot’s office.
Elliot Bellhaven, the Boulder County district attorney, was probably thinking, Got you. Finally. Elliot’s phone calls since the shooting? I had not kept count. At least five, maybe ten. Half with voicemails in their wake. Three or four during January alone.
Initially, I am so sorry. Thinking about your family. Anything at all I can do.
The messages evolved as I ignored them. Maybe we can meet for coffee. Or a drink. I would love to buy you dinner. Catch up. See how you’re doing.
The most recent voicemail, only a week back, was pointed: A work thing has come up. We should talk. Soon. Kind of urgent. Call me, please.
I didn’t like Elliot Bellhaven. I didn’t trust Elliot Bellhaven. That was why I hadn’t returned any of his calls, or replied to any of his invitations. My refusal to respond was undoubtedly why he was camping out in my office waiting room determined to catch me between patients.
Shit, I thought. I was unprepared. He was prepared. Advantage: Elliot.
ELLIOT AND I WEREN’T BUDDIES, though there had been a time when I thought we were heading that way. He became a colleague of Lauren’s when they were both young deputies in the Boulder DA’s office. Lauren was more experienced, more skilled, and more polished in those days, but Elliot had a better pedigree. He was a Harvard grad with a degree in finance who then went on to Harvard Law—Lauren had called his educational background “Harvard squared.”
She was a better prosecutor, but Elliot was always a measure or two more ambitious than she. Had Lauren not been handicapped—her word, and she meant it literally; when Elliot came to town she was recently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis—it would have been a fine fight. But her conclusion as she was coming to terms with her life with chronic illness was that a protracted alpha dog battle with Elliot was not a battle she could afford to engage, or to win. With the unpredictability of MS, and her inexperience dealing with the vagaries of her illness, she lacked both the confidence and the endurance necessary to protect any office turf she might gain with battle victories over Elliot.
Knowing she would never wake another morning, not one, without the threat of her illness complicating her life, she capitulated to Elliot early. The tension between them never did seem to let up, though. I never knew what to make of that.
Elliot and I both rode bicycles for recreation. Initially, I thought that might be our pivot toward friendship. But conflicting agendas, his and mine, and his and his, seemed to interfere with our relationship. One of Elliot’s agendas had to do w
ith office politics. Lauren believed that Elliot never trusted her abdication in the workplace and that he continued to protect his status in the office at almost any price. She thought his aggressiveness had to do with his other agenda—his longer-term goal of getting elected DA of Boulder County, or maybe even attorney general of Colorado.
The last bicycle ride Elliot and I took together was up the challenging incline of Flagstaff Mountain, above Chautauqua, on the way toward Gross Reservoir. The climb wasn’t steep. Steep, for me, stopped at half that angle. The Flagstaff Mountain climb was silly. Punishing. Ridiculous. The roster of people who had passed me on the way to the top of the cruel Flagstaff ascent wasn’t a small one.
Elliot rode with average speed on the flats—most days I could beat him on open roads. But on hills? The man had thighs of pewter, and lungs transplanted from zoo animals. Large zoo animals. He could climb a mountain like Jack could mount a beanstalk. That day Elliot beat me to the top of Flagstaff by over two minutes.
His tenacity and power were good traits for a politician. Over the ensuing years, Elliot would demonstrate political chops that played well along with other skills that I hadn’t recognized early on. The misjudgment was mine. His focus on the next electoral prize was unwavering. The fact that he could appear at times to take his eyes from that prize was mere illusion. Over the years I had occasionally fallen for Elliot’s misdirection, as well as for the accompanying insincerity that he packaged so well as sincerity.
I had learned two enduring lessons about Elliot. One, that I wasn’t good at reading him.
The second was that I should never trust him.
I SHOOK HIS HAND in the waiting room. I did not invite him back to my office.
I was aware he had probably been in my office without me that morning. In October. Or the day after. To see the crime scene. To see the place where his deputy DA was shot in the back. Or to leave his scent for my nose to detect. I detested that Elliot had been in my office without my permission. He would know that about me.
We stood awkwardly as we covered the territory that convention required. I am so sorry. We all miss her so much. How are the kids? That YouTube thing? Everybody is talking about it. Anything I can do?
In my recent experience of running into acquaintances, the conventions of grief, mostly mine, and expressions of concern, largely theirs, had replaced pro forma questions about the warm, dry winter we were having, or if the mountains had sufficient snowpack to fill the reservoirs.
“Do you mind if we sit?” he asked. “Perhaps your office?”
I was six inches taller than Elliot. That was why he wished to sit. It was why I was reluctant to sit. I was hesitant to yield any advantage; my height was one of the few I had. “I have only a minute,” I said. “I am expecting my next appointment.” I didn’t budge.
Elliot puffed himself up, as though he could inflate and fill the space.
“That day? Before Lauren came here,” he said as introduction. He didn’t wait for a reply. “Lauren had an unscheduled meeting with a young woman about a case. The woman had a boy with her.”
Lauren had been a prosecuting attorney. A healthy chunk of her work life involved meeting with people about cases. That allowed me to play dumb with Elliot. Be cool, I told myself. Be cool. I shrugged, offering Elliot no hint that I knew about the meeting Lauren had with Izza Kane and with her nephew, Elias Tres Contopo.
Elliot went on. “Did she mention anything to you that morning about that case? Or that earlier meeting? Or anything else work related?”
“Is this an official visit, Elliot?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I am just reminiscing with you.”
I could smell the bullshit. I said, “Just to clarify? You mean before Diane Estevez shot Lauren in the back?” I said. “Right down that hall?” I gestured down that hall. I did not want Elliot to allow himself any illusions about that morning. Or about the unresolved investigation he was shepherding.
I reminded myself to be careful with Elliot, to calibrate my words so that they fell in the gray zone between defensiveness and aggression. I waited to see if he was taken aback by what I said, or whether he displayed relief that I was freeing us both from having to tiptoe around in a candy land of decorum.
“Yes,” he said, “before Lauren was shot. In your office. Before all of that happened Lauren had a meeting as my deputy. I am asking if she discussed that meeting, or any other work matters, with you.”
I wanted to say, “Cut the bullshit.” But I stopped myself.
Elliot had chosen not to mention the shooter. I decided to remedy that omission.
“Lauren was shot by Diane Estevez, who has not been charged by your office with, what, anything? Did I miss an indictment? Illegal discharge of a firearm? Theft of that firearm? Perhaps the grand jury has the case? I would love an update.”
Elliot seemed prepared to parry. “You know I can’t discuss the prosecution, Alan. Or grand jury matters, if there are any. Anything involving Dr. Estevez is complicated by the circumstances of her medical condition. Please respect the office, even if you don’t agree with the conduct of our investigation. Lauren would say the same thing to you.”
“You are evoking Lauren’s memory to sway me, Elliot? Wow. Using the memory of the murder victim to rationalize your stalled investigation? That takes chutzpah and a half. Bravo.” I faux clapped. I knew I’d lost my cool.
“I was hoping our first meeting could be cordial,” he said.
First meeting? That phrase gave me a chill. I immediately felt wary about the second meeting. I said, “Are we still reminiscing?”
“The Dome Fire was exploding blocks away in Boulder Canyon, yet Lauren took the time to come over here for a visit and—”
“A visit?”
“She took time out of her day to—”
“Maybe she wanted to see her husband.”
“Her assistant told me her workday visits here were rare.”
I didn’t like that Elliot knew that fact about my marriage. What else does he know that I wouldn’t like?
“I think she came here that morning because she had something to discuss with you. About her work.”
“I don’t recall what Lauren and I talked about,” I said. “That whole day has become kind of a blur. A guess? I imagine we were discussing personal things. Husband and wife things. Family things. Our kids. Maybe Dome Fire things. Friends we might need to help evacuate. All of that, before. Before Diane burst in. Before I saw that damn little gun. And heard the shots. And saw the blood.”
Elliot wasn’t about to get sidetracked. “The woman Lauren met with at the Justice Center told me that she gave Lauren a piece of paper that morning. The paper had a drawing on it. Thing is, we can’t locate that paper. It is not in Lauren’s office. It was not in her shoulder bag, or in her purse.” He paused at that, for effect. The intended effect was to allow him to make a subtle insinuation about me. “At least by the time her things were taken into evidence. Here, in your office.”
“‘Here’ meaning the crime scene?” I said. “I assume my office was under police control minutes after the shooting.”
“Yes.” Elliot paused. “Minutes after. That’s accurate. Those ‘minutes’ are of some concern to the investigation.”
“Are we still reminiscing?” I asked. He nodded. “What woman did Lauren meet?” I knew. The woman who brought the drawing was Isabel Kane. Izza. I was testing Elliot to see what he would reveal.
He said, “Her identity is not germane.”
“You’re sure? This crime scene? My attorney said it was secured and then sealed until Detective Sengupta supervised a search early the next day. My attorney was present as a witness and to protect my privileged patient files from illegal access.”
“Yes,” he said. “Accurate again, except for those first minutes. We didn’t locate that paper prior to securing the office. Or later during the search.”
“Were you here that morning, Elliot?” I asked. “Personally?”
“What?”
“Did you enter my office under the auspices of the search warrant?”
I knew he had. I sensed his spoor. When he hesitated I wanted to hit him.
Finally he said, “In my supervisory capacity. One of my deputies had been shot.”
Asshole. He had come to mark my space. “To confirm? This is not an official visit, Elliot? We’re still shooting the shit?”
“I will tell you when I am making an official visit, Alan. This is a social call.”
I said, “Perhaps the woman who spoke with Lauren at the Justice Center was mistaken about the drawing. It was just one drawing, Elliot?”
“She is adamant about the nature of the meeting, and she confirmed handing over the drawing. A second witness corroborates it. Those facts seem beyond dispute.”
Elliot hadn’t confirmed the number of drawings. That worried me. Lauren had showed me only one. Had she left others behind at her office? I didn’t know.
I thought that the second witness Elliot mentioned would be Elias Tres, the boy who made the drawing when he was only five years old. But the second witness could also have been Lauren’s assistant, Andrew. Or someone else at the Justice Center. I had no way to know who had witnessed the moment when Izza handed Lauren the drawing. Or drawings. More disadvantage for me.
I edged closer to Elliot. “Is there an accusation hiding in there, Elliot? Are you suggesting something about my behavior the day my wife was shot in front of me?”
He waited, allowing the delay to make his point for him. “Most of Lauren’s things were taken into evidence. Here, after we got a warrant. At the hospital. A few things back at the office.” I waited. He went on. “Her shoes weren’t collected, though; they were never located. If she was wearing hose that day—we don’t know for certain that she was—we don’t have them. We do not have a bra, either.”
I found news of the disappearance of her bra curious, but not surprising. She had been shot in the back. For all I knew there was a bullet hole or two in the undergarment. During her surgery it would have definitely been an afterthought.
Compound Fractures Page 11
