The Girls He Adored

“I'
LL SAVE YOU SOME TIME,”
said the prisoner, shuffling into the interview room in his orange jumpsuit, fettered and manacled, wrists cuffed to a padlocked belt around his waist, and a scowling sheriff's deputy at his elbow. “I'm oriented times three, my thought processes are clear, and my mood and affect are appropriate to my circumstances.”

“I see you're familiar with the drill.” The psychiatrist, a slender blond woman in her early forties, looked up from behind a metal desk bare except for a Dictaphone, a notepad, and a manila folder. “Have a seat.”

“Any chance of getting these things off?” The prisoner rattled his fetters dramatically. Slight, an inch or so below medium height, he appeared to be in his late twenties.

The psychiatrist glanced up at the deputy, who shook his head. “Not if you want me to leave you alone with him.”

“I do, for now,” said the psychiatrist. “He may need a hand free later for some of the standardized tests.”

“I'll have to be here for that. Just pick up the phone when you're ready.” A black telephone was mounted on the wall behind the psychiatrist. Beside it was an inconspicuous alarm button; an identical button was concealed on the psychiatrist's side of the desk. “And you, siddown.”

The prisoner shrugged and lowered himself into the unpadded wooden chair, tugging with manacled hands at the crotch of his jumpsuit, as if it had ridden up on him. His heart-shaped face was just this side of pretty, with long-lashed eyes and lips like a Botticelli angel. He seemed to be bothered by a lock of nut brown
hair that had fallen boyishly across his forehead and over one eye, so as the guard left the room, the psychiatrist reached across the desk and brushed it back for him with her fingers.

“Thank you,” said the prisoner, looking up at her through lowered eyelids. The glitter of mischievous, self-satisfied amusement had faded from his gold-flecked brown eyes—but only for a moment. “I appreciate the gesture. Are you a defense whore or a prosecution whore?”

“Neither.” The psychiatrist ignored the insult. Testing behavior, she told herself. He was trying to control their interaction by provoking an aggressive response.

“Come on, which is it? Either my lawyer hired you to say I'm insane, or the DA hired you to say I'm not. Or were you appointed by the court to see if I'm fit to stand trial? If so, let me assure you that I am perfectly capable of understanding the charges against me and assisting in my own defense. Those are the criteria, are they not?”

“More or less.”

“You still haven't answered my question. I'll rephrase it if you'd like. Have you been hired by the defense, the prosecution, or the court?”

“Would it make a difference in how you respond to my questions?”

The prisoner's demeanor changed dramatically. He lowered his shoulders, arched his neck, cocked his head to the side, and formed his next words carefully, almost primly, at the front of his mouth, speaking with just a trace of a lisp. “
Would it make a dif-fer-ence in how you respond to my questy-ons?”

It was a remarkably effective imitation of her own bearing and manner of speaking, the psychiatrist realized. He had her nailed, right down to the hint of sibilence that was, after years of speech therapy, all that remained of a once ferocious, sputtering, Daffy Duck of a speech impediment. But the parody was more affectionate than cruel, as if he'd known and liked her for years.

“Of course it would,” he went on in his own voice. “Don't be disingenuous.”

“I suppose you're right.” The psychiatrist sat back in her chair, trying to maintain a professional demeanor despite the hot blush blooming in her cheeks. “That was an excellent imitation, by the way.”

“Thank you!” Jail garb, fetters, and circumstances notwithstanding,
the prisoner's grin lit up the bare room. “Want to see my Jack Nicholson?”

“Perhaps some other time,” she replied, sounding to her annoyance every bit as prim as his imitation of her. She caught herself touching the top few buttons of her beige blouse with fluttering fingertips, like a schoolgirl who'd noticed her date glancing surreptitiously at her chest. “We have quite a bit of work ahead of us today.”

“Oh! Well then, by all means, let's get on with it.” The prisoner flapped his manacled wrists, as if he were shooing pigeons away; his chains rattled musically.