No Cure for Murder (33 page)
“Of course. Do you want to come here or meet me in the office?”
“Your office is better. I hate the thought of bringing my problems into Jacob’s home.”
Tuesday morning, and the streets were packed with students on their way to the UC campus. The Berkeley Woman’s Health Clinic on Channing Way had its own parking. Thank God, Zoe thought as the guard showed her to an empty parking space.
Zoe wore jeans, a silk blouse, and her favorite pink Arista sunglasses. When she walked into Lola’s office, she placed the glasses into a hard case, then in her purse. They shook hands and as Lola looked up to meet the eyes of the much taller woman, Zoe looked away.
“I don’t know what I’m doing here. Jacob said you might help us...I find it difficult to reject anything he suggests.”
“I’ll tell you right from the start that it’s part of Jacob’s character to help. He can’t be passive, but if you feel coerced, it’s coming from within you.”
“I just hate to disappoint him.”
“How can I help you?”
“You can’t.”
Lola stood. “Well, that was quick. You have a nice day.”
Zoe remained seated.
Lola returned to her chair, leaned back and relaxed her short legs. She knew that silence, an old ally for an experienced therapist, was oppressive to most patients. Lola watched Zoe shift in her chair, cross and uncross her long legs, and avoided eye contact.
“ I know what’s going on, Lola. I did a psychiatry rotation, you know.”
“What do you think is going on?”
“Do you want the encyclopedic version of my life, or will the Cliff Notes do?”
“You have a strange idea of what I’m about. Have you ever seen a psychiatrist before?”
“Of course. Who hasn’t?”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Most of them meant well, but how can you play the violin when you’re tone deaf?”
“You mean your therapists were hard of hearing?” Lola tried to lighten the atmosphere.
“Deaf and dumb, too,” came through clenched jaws.
“You don’t think much of psychiatry?”
“Who does?”
“Jung said: ‘Show me a sane man, and I will cure him for you.’” Lola looked for a reaction. Not even a grin.
“Why so angry, Zoe?”
“You’ve had a great life, Lola. Professional and personal achievements...more than anyone expects in this corrupt world.”
“What was the sentinel event of your childhood?”
“Here it comes. Like the income tax man, sooner or later, the shrink appears.” She hesitated, “Should I start in utero?”
“You’re wasting both our times, Zoe. I have no hidden agenda. I have few illusions about psychiatry, but if I’m going to help you, I can’t work in a vacuum. You must give me something.”
Zoe looked up and to the left, searching her memories. “I really don’t remember much from my childhood.”
Lola sat in silence waiting for her to continue.
After five minutes of silence, Zoe stood and stared at Lola. “You’re right. This is a total waste of our times.”
When the clock approached three that same afternoon, Brier’s halls were busy as the staff prepared for the p.m. shift. The white coated figure stood at Abby Cantor’s bedside, grabbed the IV line, and prepared to inject the syringe filled with cranberry-colored fluid. Abby looked up and smiled.
The door burst open and a deep voice said, “Freeze...freeze,” then pulled the syringe away violently as a line of red fluid sprayed across the white sheet.
“Did she get any?” said a female voice.
“I don’t think so,” said the uniformed officer who turned the white coated figure around slapping on the cuffs in one fluid movement.
Zoe Spelling struggled against the cuffs. “Get these off me now or you’ll pay for this travesty.”
Shelly Kahn stared at the officer then at Zoe, uncertain about what to say or do.
Shelly held up the red fluid-filled syringe. “What is this?”
“Get these damned cuffs off me.”
“Not until you answer my questions, Doctor.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“What’s in this syringe?”
Zoe reddened and through clenched teeth. “I’d like to speak with my attorney.”
An hour later, at Police Headquarters in downtown Berkeley, Ira Green pointed his especially long, bent-at-its-tip index finger, at Shelly Kahn. “What in hell did you do?”
“Wait a minute, Chief...”
“No, you wait, Shelly. Without cause, you cuffed and arrested Dr. Spelling, one of Brier’s most respected physicians.”
“Now hear me out, Ira,” cried Shelly. “You know what it’s like at Brier. Everyone waiting for the next murder. We didn’t have a choice.”
“Bullshit, Shelly. Have you forgotten everything we taught you about procedure?”
“One of our officers saw her draw up the red fluid and proceed to Mrs. Cantor’s room. We had to act right away before it was too late.”
“Too late? I love police heroics, Shelly. You saved Mrs. Cantor from the ravages of a vitamin B-12 injection.”
“Vitamin B-12?”
“Vitamin B-12. Dr. Spelling gives Mrs. Cantor a shot of B-12 each week.”
Shelly blushed, shrinking into a corner of the chair before Ira’s desk. “Why didn’t she tell us?”
“Maybe she didn’t like being manhandled and cuffed in front of her own patient.”
Ira looked toward his open door and saw Zoe, and a well-dressed man, her attorney, approaching.
The chief grabbed Shelly by the arm, pulling her into a standing position and whispered, “Apologize, damn it...apologize.”
Shelly turned to Zoe. “I’m so sorry, Dr. Spelling...”
Zoe held her hand in the classical stop gesture. She leaned through the door and smiled. “Meet my attorney, Harwood Harrington, you’ll be hearing from him soon. This fiasco is going to cost Brier Hospital and the Berkeley P.D. a bundle.”
Chapter Sixty
Carleton Dix walked up to the psych ward nursing station. “I would like to see Kelly Cowan.”
“I’m sorry, chaplain, but we’re under strict orders: No visitors.”
“But, I’ve counseled her. I can help.”
“I’m sorry, sir. Dr. Weizman’s orders.”
Lola watched the encounter from the dictation room across the hall. She rose, opened the door. “Why don’t you join me, chaplain.”
As Carleton walked across the hall, Lola turned to the ward clerk and whispered, “Get hospital security. Keep them out of view, but get them here, just in case.”
“Will you be okay, Doctor?”
“I’ll be fine.”
When Carleton Dix entered the tiny room, he slumped into the chair across from Lola, keeping his eyes down.
“Chutzpah...Chutzpah, that’s what you have, Reverend. Haven’t you done enough?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What has she told you?”
“Enough.”
“She’s a very disturbed young woman. You’re an experienced psychotherapist, how can you believe anything she says?”
“My experience allows me to recognize the truth. If your acts weren’t despicable enough, I’d laugh at your pathetic protestations.”
“She’s completely confused about my intentions. I just wanted to help the girl.”
“Like you helped the girls in Rapid City?”
His eyes widened. “That was a complete misunderstanding.”
“Very creative, chaplain. That might work, except we’ve seen the records. We know what you’ve done and what you’re capable of doing. How can you live with yourself?”
“I...” He stood with clenched fists.
As Lola looked through the window for help, she saw the ward clerk talking with two security guards. When they walked toward the door, she raised her hand in the stop gesture.
Lola returned her gaze to the chaplain. “If you’re a psychopath, you’re also the world’s greatest actor.”
He blanched. “You don’t know what it’s like. To have urges you can’t control. Do you think I like being this way?”
“You and your type...you mystify me and I don’t mystify easily. It takes a particular kind of denial to make that extreme form of rationalization work.”
“I never forced myself on anyone. I’m no rapist. I loved those girls, each and every one. They had problems. They needed my help.”
“Isn’t that step number three in the pedophile’s defense manual..the step after denial and minimization?”
The chaplain rose, and through clenched teeth growled, “You can’t prove a thing. I’m sick of you and that senile husband of yours. I’ll discuss this with Kelly’s parents. They’re in charge, not you.”
“If you’re stupid enough to try to talk with Mr. Cowan, make sure you’re wearing a bullet proof vest.”
Lola stood, walked to the door. “I’m a licensed health professional and I have an absolute duty to report any information I have about child abuse. If I were you, chaplain, I’d pack my bags.”
Sharon Brickman, the director of the CCU, and Kate Planchette sat at the nursing station.
Kate watched Ahmad Kadir walked away from the cardiac step-down unit. “I don’t like the way he skulks around, Sharon. He often appears in places he doesn’t belong.”
“He’s a resident, Kate, and part of his training is to review charts and examine as many patients as he can.”
“I never thought of myself as a bigot, but like most others, I find it difficult to look at any Arab man without thinking, could he be a terrorist or a terrorist sympathizer. I’m not proud of that.”
“Believe me, I know all about it. Ahmad has taken plenty of crap right here at Brier…probably more than you or I could take. Some idiot attacked him for no other reason than his appearance.”
“It’s more than that,” Kate continued. “Maybe it’s cultural. Maybe it’s a byproduct of discrimination, but the guy creeps me out.”
“Is that a technical term?”
“I’m a good nurse, Sharon, and in part, it’s because I read my patients well. Body language reveals truth more often than you’d think. Dr. Kadir’s body language says, watch out. It says that this is an angry, secretive, oppressed man, just the sort who comprises the suicide bombers in the middle east.”
“I feel sorry for him. He’s tried so hard to fit in, but if anything, he’s shown nothing but restraint.”
“I worry less about those whose emotions are overt. I may be reading between his shifty eyes, folded arms, turning of his body away, and touching of his face, but the message I’m getting is clear: Nothing is as it seems. Beware.”
“Maybe that’s how we’d react if we didn’t feel accepted in a foreign country or worse, when we’re reviled.”
“Maybe so, Sharon, but my impressions of a person are rarely wrong, and I’m not about to ignore them.”
Chapter Sixty-One
Zoe carried her lunch tray to the doctor’s dining room table nearest the window. She wore a white coat over her yellow sundress.
As she placed her tray down on the table, Arnie Roth smiled. “I’d go your bail any time, Zoe. Just call.”
She smiled seductively. “Right Arnie. All talk and no action.”
“Handcuffs?” asked Jack Byrnes.
Zoe brushed back her hair. “Won’t you guys ever get over your adolescent fantasies?”
Just then, Jacob arrived and pulled up the seat next to Zoe. He placed his cup of black coffee next to his brown bag lunch.
“Aren’t you tired of a sandwich and coffee every day?” asked Arnie.
“Don’t forget the apple,” said Jacob. “Got to have one every day, although looking around it doesn’t seem to be working.”
“What’s it like Jacob to be working with a felon?” asked Jack.
“It’s not the felon that’s the problem. It’s the rest of you who are free to inflict misery on others. That worries me.” Suddenly serious, Jacob looked around the table. “Think about it. This is what we’ve come to. We’ve reached the point of desperation where any one of us is suspect.”
“He’ll stop,” said Arnie, “or he’ll get caught.”
“He?” Jacob asked. “Maybe you know something we don’t.”
“You got me,” said Arnie. “I have a hard time thinking about women in that way ...maybe it’s a good thing I’m not a cop.”
When Sarah Hughes arrived for her session, Lola stood. “It’s too nice to sit around inside. Let’s go for a ride.”
Sarah held on for dear life, smiling all the while, as Lola sped east in her red Honda with the top down. They passed through the Berkeley streets, then on to Interstate 880 heading south. They exited at Marina Boulevard in San Leandro, and finally parked at the boat basin.