The Girl Without a Name (23 page)

“Um, well…” I pace around the room. “He actually just jumped out the window.”

The phone goes silent for a second. “Excuse me?”

Two hours later, we're in the family therapy room with its dusty blinds and metal-framed baby animal posters. The twelfth floor is a crime scene now, so the therapy room has become an ersatz incident room.

“I still don't get what you were doing there,” Detective Adams says.

I rub my skin, which feels weird, rubbery. The feeling I have right before the flu. “I just knew he'd be there.”

“And isn't it possible,” the other detective asks (Detective Gonzalez, she said her name was; I can't figure out if Detective Adams is her boss or vice versa), “that you got so upset about the news that you pushed him out the window?” She leans in toward me, her lanyard banging against the desk. Hot-pink lace from her bra peeks through her button-down when she leans back. “I mean, I know that's what I would have done. Is it possible that's what happened?” Detective Gonzalez appears to be playing bad cop, a role more suited for Detective Adams. But I know he's a good cop, so that wouldn't work. Or maybe I've just seen too many cop shows.

“No, it isn't possible.” I think for a second. “I guess it's possible, but I'd have to somehow lure him over to an open window, then overpower him and throw him out. He's pretty tall, actually. Taller than me.”

“You could have used the element of surprise.”

I shrug. I think even she realizes this sounds improbable. “Maybe, but I didn't. He jumped. I tried to stop him. I couldn't.” I'd already been through this with them ten times. I already mimed exactly how he did it. I don't have it in me to do it again.

“How long did you know about the O-club?”

“The O-club? I don't know. Dr. Berringer mentioned it a couple months ago.”

“He did?” Detective Adams breaks in with obvious shock.

“Yeah. That's what he called Alcoholics Anonymous. For Omar, Oscar, and Ozzie.”

Detective Gonzalez looks at me like I'm loony tunes. “The O-club?”

“Yeah. That's all he said. It was like his pet name for AA. I didn't ask him much about it, figuring it's anonymous and all.”

They both stare at me a second.

“What?” I ask to their stares.

“The O-club is what they called their group, Zoe,” Detective Adams says gently. “The pedophilia ring.”

My mouth falls open.

“And you didn't know about any of it? About his relationship to the girls? To Donner?” When Detective Gonzalez leans over again, a strong scent of perfume wafts up. “Because I would understand if you did. If you knew about it, but you wanted to protect him. He is your boss after all.”

“No. I didn't know anything about it. Not until I saw the text. I only knew what Detective Adams knew—”

“Were you in a relationship with Dr. Berringer?” she breaks in.

I pause. “I guess. He was my attending.”

“Yes, I know. But anything more than that?” She gives me a knowing smile. “I heard he was all kinds of handsome.”

“Yeah, and he was also all kinds of married. At least for a while. And he was all kinds of my boss. So no, we weren't…”—I struggle for the word—“intimate.”

“So if we look through his diary, we're not going to find out that you two were more than that?” she asks.

Detective Adams shuffles through some paperwork.

“I don't know what the hell you'll find if you look through his diary,” I answer. “But in any case, I wasn't sleeping with him.”

She moves in uncomfortably toward me, encroaching on my space. I have to think this is straight out of the detective's handbook. “The nurses said you two were rather close.”

I shrug. “We were friends, sort of. But close, I don't know about that. There's close and there's close.” Suddenly a thought strikes, and I turn to Detective Adams. “Why the O-club? Like the
Story of O
?”

“What's that?” he asks.

“It's erotica. Well, sort of. More like S and M and misogyny dressed up as erotica. You could Google it, probably. But don't do it at work.”

“You seem to know a lot about this,” Detective Gonzalez observes.

“Not really. I took a feminist course in college. Sort of an easy course, actually, but I was taking Chem at the time, which was kicking my ass, so…” I trail off, and Detective Adams looks down at the floor and rubs his knee. Obviously I'm getting off topic here, but any trace of Adderall is long gone from my bloodstream at this point.

“Dr. Goldman, I'm wondering about something else. The phone call from Donner. The phone just
happened
to be in Dr. Berringer's lab coat for you to discover? Seems very coincidental, doesn't it?”

“I would say lucky more than coincidental.”

Detective Gonzalez leans back and cracks her knuckles with great verve, a move that looks practiced, the brash confidence of which is offset by her pink bra peeking through again. “Let's talk about something else.”

“Okay.”

“The Demerol.”

“Right.”

“You seem pretty well versed in how that would work. The Demerol making her sick.”

“Yeah?”

“How do we know, for instance, that it wasn't you that gave her the Demerol? You had the access. You had the knowledge of—”

“That's it!” I yell out.

Both seasoned detectives jump. “What?” Detective Adams asks.

“The scar. It's not a zero; it's an O.”

Detective Adams scrunches his eyes half closed, the way he does when he's thinking. “For the O-club?”

“Yes. They branded them in the story, too.” I run my hands through my hair, dry and limp at this point. “He fucking branded them.” My hands are trembling. There is silence in the room then, an ugly, angry silence.

“Dr. Goldman,” she says, “we were talking about the Demerol.”

“I didn't give her Demerol,” I say, losing patience. “I mean, why would I give her Demerol, then go tell everybody I thought someone was giving her Demerol, which almost got me fired by the way, then get a lab to prove it? Two labs, actually.”

She pauses here and rests her elbow on the table too close to mine. A white piece of thread makes an S on her sleeve. It takes all my will not to pick it off.

“Sometimes it's hard to understand why we do the things we do.”

“Yeah, but that's sort of my job description,” I grumble. I'm not generally so grouchy, but I'm hungry and this woman is just plain being ridiculous in her pink lace bra. I have no idea what she's driving at, and I suspect she doesn't either. I yawn. I feel like someone unplugged me and I'm losing charge fast. “Could we maybe talk more tomorrow? I'm really tired.”

“Yeah,” Detective Adams breaks in. “I think we're done here, Angela. Dr. Goldman would have had to be one hell of an actor or just a goddamned idiot to have masterminded this whole thing, all the while keeping me informed with regular updates.” Detective Gonzalez shoots him a look. Bad cop turns into pissed-off cop. “And I mean annoyingly regular updates,” he adds.

I sneak him a smile.

Detective Gonzalez stands up, visibly irritated. “I'm just doing my job, Frank.”

“I know, I know.” His voice is appeasing.

“Hey,” I say, standing up, too, as the debriefing appears to be over. “Can I see her real quick before I go?”

He glances at Detective Gonzalez, who shrugs her approval.

“Sure,” he says. “I'll come with you.”

We walk down the hall to her room. It's just past midnight, and it feels like my legs are a hundred pounds each. Detective Adams knocks, and the policeman guarding the room looks up from his reading, a three-month-old
People
magazine, covered with reality stars that have been married and divorced by now.

“How's she doing?” Detective Adams whispers.

“All good here,” he whispers back. “The girl really wanted to sleep with her sister. So I figured it was okay. We probably won't get much out of her right now anyway.”

“Yeah, that's okay,” Detective Adams agrees.

The dim, tawny-yellow light suffuses the bed, Candy stiff on her back, eyes fluttering, and Janita asleep and clinging to her sister with one leg thrown over her in protection, the O-shaped scar just visible on her ankle.

And for the first time in the case, I think things might just turn out all right.

I
know he was your patient.” I didn't plan to say it, but the words just come out. Two weeks later and I'm sitting on Sam's couch.

He takes off his glasses (new, modern, square, black ones; I like them, but I miss the old tortoiseshells). “I can't talk about that. You understand that.”

I nod. “Yes. I do.”

He slides his glasses back on. “And if I were his doctor, confidentiality stands, even after death.”

I build a tower out of the magnet bits on the shiny black block, pinching it up high until it shrivels over. A new toy. The Zen sandbox has been stashed away somewhere. “Did you know about it, though? What he was doing?”

He lets out a sigh. “Listen, Zoe, I can't talk about Dr. Berringer. Just as I wouldn't reveal any details about you to someone who asked.” He smooths his goatee. “But I will tell you this. I have a responsibility for the well-being of others. So if my patient revealed his intention to hurt someone—his wife, for instance, or children—I would have to tell someone. I would be
obligated
to tell the authorities.” Putting his palms together, he stares right at me. “Do you understand what I'm saying?”

“Yes,” I say. “I think I do.” Lightness fills my chest then, a surge of relief. I didn't realize how much the question had been weighing on me. “You know, I need to tell you something.”

“Okay.” He leans back from his desk, opening his posture.

“I liked him.”

He spins his fake Montblanc on his yellow notepad. “Dr. Berringer?”

“Yes.”

“I'm not surprised. He's a likable guy.”

“No, I mean
like
, like. Not that I would have ever told him. I barely even admitted it to myself.”

“And that makes you feel…?” he asks, letting me provide the word.

“Guilty.”

He nods.

“Stupid, bad judge of character, shallow—you pick the adjective. That's how it makes me feel.”

He shrugs. “People like that can be very charming.”

“Charming…as in narcissistic?” We both know the psychiatric code word for
charming
.

“Maybe. Mind you, I'm not saying anything about
this
patient,” he reminds me. “But people like this can be very attractive. They're the favorite priest, the coolest football coach.”

The one who scores all tens on his evaluations, I think. Who has the nurses wrapped around his pinkie. Who makes all the mothers swoon.

“It's the person no one suspects,” he goes on. “They leave a lot of damage in their wake. A lot of guilt for a lot of people who think, ‘How didn't I know?'” He taps his pen on the pad. “But how could you know?”

“I should have known.”

“It's a tragedy, Zoe. But it's still his fault. You can't take any blame for not figuring it out sooner. Nobody did.”

“Yeah, but—”

“And,” he continues, uncharacteristically interrupting me, “you saved that girl's life. You told me how high he had the ECT jacked up. Who knows what would have happened?” His voice is furious. “And just so you know, ECT can be a very helpful tool for the right patients, in the right hands. I've seen it save lives. But he misused it. That's all there is to it.”

“And you know,” I say, getting angry myself, “she wasn't even catatonic. I was right. As soon as the new attending came on, he checked her CPKs, and they were sky-high. It was serotonin syndrome and a neuroleptic malignant syndrome wrapped into one. And her kidneys were starting to fail.”

He shakes his head. “How is she now?”

“Better. Much better. We got her off all her meds except benzos as needed.” I grin then. “I think the best therapy has really been her sister.”

“Janita?”

“She's been practically living there,” I say, scrunching up more magnet pieces. “You know, I'm wondering, in your professional psychiatric opinion…”

“Yes?” he replies with some amusement.

“Why did she pick Daneesha to turn into? How does that make any sense?”

He pauses, thinking about it. “It does make sense in a way. It brought her younger sister back. And maybe, in her confused mind, that allowed her to bring back Janita.”

“Maybe.”

“And it protected her. Who knows what Daneesha would have been like as a thirteen-year-old. But Candy envisioned her as strong, powerful, ready to stand her ground. And that's what she needed. Protection. She couldn't do it herself, so she got someone to help her.”

I nod, thinking it through. “That's not half bad.” I play with more shredded magnets. “You should do this for a living.”

He laughs. “And how are you doing with all this?”

I search for an honest answer. “I'm not sure.”

Someone pulls into the parking lot, and I realize for a second that I was looking for Dr. Berringer's black Jeep, worried he might see me here. But he won't be coming here anymore. The psychiatrist who swan-dived will be a tall tale in Buffalo for years to come. A warning maybe. Or just a punchline.

After checking out, I get into my car, when the phone rings.

“Hey, it's me,” Mike says, “just checking in.” Mike flew back right after Thanksgiving when he heard what happened. He and Scotty have been “checking in” a lot.

“How's work?” I ask.

“Crazy. Tons of dumps.”

Dumps, meaning families are dumping their decrepit or Alzheimer-addled loved ones just in time for the holidays. Sad, but a reality of ER life. “Any word on the job front?” I ask.

“Yeah, I was going to tell you later.” A doctor's name is paged on the overhead. “Got an offer from North Carolina. The urgent-care one.”

“Hmm.”

“Haven't said yes or no yet.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It pays more than Buffalo, though.”

My heart falls an inch. “I see.”

“How about you? Fellowship thoughts?”

I sigh, turning on the engine. “I'm not much further than yesterday, actually. Not pediatrics—too depressing. Not geriatrics—too depressing. Not addiction—”

“Let me guess,” he interrupts. “Too depressing.”

I put the Styrofoam cup down on the wood-paneled desk. My lipstick has left a half-moon on the rim. It's my third cup today.

“It's dead around here,” I observe.

“Yeah. Saturday.” Then Detective Adams harrumphs. “Did I mention I wanted to retire?”

“Once or twice.”

He flips through some more sheets in the case file, and I sign innumerable papers. “You sure do kill a lot of trees around here.”

“Don't I know it.” He slides over another form for me to sign. “How was your Thanksgiving, by the way?”

“Oh, fine.” And it wasn't bad, all things considered. Other than I missed Mike. And Arthur spent the entire time hiding under the table with a turkey leg he somehow pawed off the island (Scotty giving me a look like, “Why'd you bring your dog to my house?” and me giving him a look like, “He was supposed to be your dog in the first place”). Kristy turned out to be a welcome change from his usual type. She has both breasts and brains. She was actually advising him on investing his Treasury bond, and he was listening. “How about you?”

“Good. Lots of family, huge dinner, beckoning me faster to the inevitable heart attack.” He searches through some more of the file, and I drop the pen on the table, where it rolls halfway to the other side.

“So do you know what's going to happen with them?” I ask.

“Who, the girls?”

“Yeah.” I stamp my foot, which has gone numb from sitting on this uncomfortable metal chair so long.

“Not sure. It really has to do with international issues at this point. But I think they'll get back to Toronto eventually.”

“Hopefully we can get them back with Heaven. It's what they want.”

He shrugs. “Who knows? That's up to Social Services at this point. Not really my jurisdiction.”

“Not mine either,” I say. Once they're discharged, they're gone. I usually never see them again. Except for Tiffany, who I saw over and over until I didn't see her anymore.

“Listen. I'm a happy man. Didn't you hear?” His smile is hearty. “We shut down an international pedophile ring. Toronto to New York City. Closed for business, folks.”

I smile at his justified jubilation, signing another paper. “Did you find out any more about the Demerol?”

He pushes smudged silver reading glasses back onto his nose. “Yeah, we tracked it down to a nurse. Department of Health took over the case.”

“Did you get to interview her at least?”

“She lawyered up pretty quick,” he says. “But it looks like Dr. Berringer was paying her to get it for him, and she assumed it was for him. She didn't know he was giving it to Candy.”

I made sure they were comfortable.

Snow starts to fall outside the window. Tentative, thirty-degree flakes that could just as easily go back to rain. “Snain,” as my dad used to call it. The detective skims through the bulky green folder one last time, then pats it with his paw of a hand. “I think that's it. We're finally done with all the signing.”

“So I'm free to go?”

He laughs. “It's not like you were arrested.” Standing up, he grabs his gray-black heather tweed hat, a hat I would picture a policeman wearing. We walk out of the deserted building. The afternoon is cold. Christmas lights hang over the ledge of the Irish bar across the street, snow reflecting the blocks of colors.

“Where did you park?”

“Just down the street,” I say, motioning up ahead.

We walk in silence for a bit, the soft snow falling around us. “Did you have any idea?” I ask.

“About what?”

“Dr. Berringer?”

Detective Adams shakes his head without hesitation. “Not a clue.”

“Nothing from New Orleans then?”

“We looked into that, but no. All we knew about was his drinking.” Thick snowflakes stick to his gray wool coat. “But he was all over the O-club files. He was with quite a few of these girls. A good customer, I guess.”

So he lied about that, too.

“There's e-mails between him and Donner that date back to Tulane. Buffalo's probably been on his radar for quite a while.”

Which is perhaps what enticed the wunderkind to Children's Hospital in the first place. We keep walking, the sound of our footsteps swallowed up by the snow. “You know, I don't think he actually wanted to kill Candy. He wanted her to forget him. And he wanted to get away with it. But in his heart of hearts, he didn't want to kill her.”

We get to my car. The sky above us is eggshell white. “You know, Zoe, I've stopped trying to figure out what goes on in the hearts of criminals.”

As he says this, it strikes me. He put it perfectly, exactly what I
do
want to do: Figure out what goes on in the hearts of criminals. Not child psych, not addiction.

Forensic psychiatry, of course. Now I've just got to tell Mike.

When my phone quacks me awake, I have no idea where I am.

I am of course in bed, where I should be at three a.m. I pat the space next to my bed and remember Mike's on call tonight. Arthur sniffles, then falls back to sleep.

I don't recognize the caller ID. “Hello. This is Dr. Goldman.”

“Zoe?” The voice has a foreign quality to it. French. It takes a few more seconds to attach a name to the disembodied voice.

“Jean Luc?” I start to sit up.

“It is so good to hear you,” he says, which sounds heartfelt. His words are slurred and hoarse, and there's banging music behind him.

“Are you okay?”

“Oh,” he says, like he just realized it might be odd to be calling someone in the middle of the night. “Yeah, I'm okay.”

“Where are you?” I ask.

“DC.”

“Not Paris?”

“No, wait a second,” he yells above the noise. I hear footsteps, a door creak closed, and then the music falls to a soft throb. “That is better.”

“Yes, I can hear you at least.” I glance at the clock, realizing I have to be up in three hours to see patients. Dr. Grant likes to round early. “Are you in a bar?” This would be very un–Jean Luc. Jean Luc doesn't like bars. (
Very loud and drunk people, how is this pleasant?
he asked me once.)

“Yes, well,” he explains, “it's my bachelor party.”

“Really? I thought your wedding wasn't until April.”

“This was the only weekend it would work in DC.”

“Oh,” I say again. Arthur knocks his tail against my knee, woofing in a dream.

“Zoe, I think I made a terrible mistake.” There is a pause as the song changes in the bar. He sighs into the phone, a long theatrical sigh. Again, very un–Jean Luc, which means he must be pretty drunk. “A terrible mistake.”

“What do you mean?” I ask. Though I know I shouldn't ask. I should cut him off right here and now. But the bait is dangling before me, plump and shiny, and it's so damn hard not to bite.

“With Melanie,” he explains.

“Right.”

We both pause here, treading into dangerous territory. My heart is thumping in my pajama top.

“Sometimes she is so difficult, so demanding. Not like you. Things were so easy with you.”

Too easy, I think. But I don't say anything.

“I think I've made a terrible, terrible mistake.” He sounds like he's about to cry.

“You know, Jean Luc, things didn't go so well with us either, if you remember.”

There is silence on his end, waiting. He doesn't agree, but he doesn't argue either.

“You missed Melanie, remember? When you came to visit? You got sick of me after, like, four hours.”

I laugh, though I don't feel like laughing, and he laughs, though it sounds like he could also be crying. “I was an idiot.”