Tight Lines (14 page)

I sat and took her bony hand.

“What can you tell me?”

“It looks like a canoeing accident. A place called Teal Pond near Keene, New Hampshire, where Mary Ellen apparently owned a cottage. It happened about three weeks ago, according to…” I let my voice trail off.

“The coroner? Come on, Counselor. You can speak candidly with me.”

“Yes. The medical examiner. They hadn’t identified her body until I spoke to the police about her. The dental records were what they needed.”

Susan squeezed my hand. “Well, this is just bullshit,” she said.

“Susan, dental records are very—”

“Oh, I’m not saying they’ve misidentified her. But there is simply no way Mary Ellen would drown. She was a magnificent swimmer from the time she could walk. She was a regular fish in the water.”

“There could have been a storm,” I said. “She might’ve gotten a cramp.”

“Nonsense. If they’re trying to make an accident out of it, they’re simply wrong.”

“Susan—”

“Now don’t you try to patronize me, Brady Coyne. I am very saddened by this news. I had my heart set on seeing my daughter one time before I died. But it has been a long time, and she is just a memory for me. That’s as plain as I can say it. I’m not doing a denial thing. I’m simply saying that she did not drown in an accident. Or do they say she hit her head or something?”

“No. Apparently they’ve discounted anything like that. There were no bruises or contusions or anything. She just—drowned.”

She cocked her head at me. “Suicide?”

“Oh, Susan…”

“I want to know, Brady.”

“I don’t know about suicide.”

“You told me she was seeing a psychiatrist.”

I nodded. “He doesn’t think she was suicidal. I imagine the police will talk with him. He might help.”

“The other possibility,” said Susan, her voice firm, “is murder.”

I shrugged. “All I can tell you is what I’ve been told. There’s no evidence of either suicide or murder. But they are looking into it.”

Her hand loosened in mine. She let herself slump back against the sofa. She closed her eyes. “Well,” she said quietly, “now it doesn’t matter.”

I patted her hand and said nothing.

“Willard Ellington,” she murmured, “will be thrilled.”

“Who?”

“I mentioned him to you.” She opened her eyes and turned her head to me. “The man from the Concord Historic Places Commission. You passed him in the driveway when you were here before. My daughter has predeceased me. The commission will have the Ames estate any day now. Willard will dance a jig when he hears.”

I found myself disliking Willard Ellington, whom I had never met, intensely.

W
ARREN MCALLISTER CALLED ME
at the office Friday morning. “I just heard,” he said. “My God.”

“I should’ve told you,” I said. “I’m sorry. I guess Susan—Mary Ellen’s mother—has been on my mind.”

“I can’t believe it.” He sounded genuinely shaken.

“How did you hear?” I said.

“That’s why I’m calling you. I had a call last evening from a state policeman. He wants to interrogate me.”

“Interrogate?”

“Interview was the word he used, I think. Evidently the circumstances of her death…”

“She drowned,” I said. “There were no witnesses. It’s an unattended death. Therefore a medical examiner’s case. It’s routine.”

“Anyway,” he said, “this policeman is coming over this evening.” He hesitated. “I want to have an attorney with me.”

“Why?”

“I’ve never been interrogated—interviewed—by the police. In my profession, confidentiality is everything. I don’t know what the law says about privilege after the client has died, but I know how I feel about it.”

“The law is vague, as it usually is. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has held that for lawyers, at least, privilege continues after the death of the client. Remember the Stuart case? For doctors, it’s safe to assume the same rules would apply. Obviously whatever a client tells you in confidence about other people is privileged. Or at least it’s obvious to me. Otherwise, I would assume one would want to be of help. It could be tricky.”

“Exactly,” said McAllister.

I waited.

“So,” he said, “I wondered if you’d help me.”

“Don’t you have a lawyer?”

“I’ve got friends who are lawyers. One of them has helped me and Robin with financial things. Taxes, investments, real estate. He did our will for us. I’ve got the impression that you’re more familiar with situations like this one.”

“I’m sure any lawyer could do the job,” I said.

“Well, this guy is more of a family friend than a family attorney. Anyway, I think you told me that, um, discretion, I think was the word you used, is more or less your forte.”

“It’s true. It is.” I paused. I could think of no reason not to help him out. “Sure, okay. I’d be happy to be there for you, Warren.”

“Boy, that’s terrific. This policeman said he’d be here at eight tonight. Is that okay?”

“I’ll be there.”

I pulled my car in front of his Victorian in Brookline on the dot of eight. Warren answered the doorbell out back and led me upstairs to his office. He was wearing a blue flannel shirt, tan corduroy pants, and boat shoes. He looked more like a clerk at the corner hardware store than a psychiatrist. He sat me down in one of the chairs by the wood stove, but he continued standing. He offered me coffee, which I refused. He moved around the room touching things and glancing out the window.

Finally I said, “Warren, relax. This is a routine thing.”

“They’ll want to know if Mary Ellen could’ve committed suicide, won’t they?”

I nodded. “I imagine so. That’s a question you should try to answer.”

“Well, I guess that doesn’t bother me, although somehow the very idea of it seems like an accusation. But listen. I know about her lovers, her parents, her friends and enemies. I don’t feel comfortable with any of that.”

“Tell the police that, then. If you’re uncertain, consult me.”

He nodded. “Okay. It sounds easy.”

He sat down across from me. “Mainly,” he said, “I’m very upset by this thing. One gets to know one’s patients very well. Professional distance and everything, sure, but still, you care very much about them. Mary Ellen was…”

He stopped. I said, “Was what?”

“So—so vital. So alive and enthusiastic. Oh, she was quite neurotic. But her depression was well controlled by the medication. I just can’t believe she’s dead.”

“I understand,” I said.

“But you never knew her.”

“True. It’s different, I know.”

Warren jumped to his feet at the buzz of the doorbell. He left and returned a minute later.

Horowitz was behind him. He looked at me and grinned. “Well, well,” he said.

“Hi.” I lifted my hand in greeting.

Horowitz turned to Warren. “You don’t need a lawyer, you know, Doctor. We’re just trying to get some information. You’re not being accused of anything. If you needed counsel, it’s my job to remind you of that.”

Warren nodded. “I know that. I feel more comfortable.”

Horowitz shrugged. “Your privilege. Why don’t we get started. It shouldn’t take long.”

The three of us sat by the cold wood stove. Horowitz took out a notebook. “Okay,” he said, looking at Warren. “Mary Ellen Ames was your patient, correct?”

“That’s right.”

“For how long?”

“She came to me nearly four years ago.”

“Why?”

“Pardon me?”

“Why did she come to you? What was her complaint?”

Warren glanced at me. I nodded. He turned back to Horowitz. “She was depressed. She had problems with relationships. She’d never held an important job or done anything that she felt was worthwhile. She’d had a basically unhappy childhood. She was trying to mourn her father’s death, something that had happened several years earlier.” He shrugged. “These are typical of the reasons why people seek psychiatric help, really.”

“You said she was depressed,” said Horowitz.

Warren nodded.

“Was she suicidal?”

He hesitated and glanced at me before answering. “I was concerned at first, yes. But as we proceeded with our work I no longer was concerned. Her depression was mild and well controlled.”

“Controlled how?”

“I prescribed Pertofrane for her. It’s a very good drug, widely used now. And she was doing well with our work together.”

“Doctor,” said Horowitz, “Miz Ames’s death appears to be accidental. We would like to be able to rule out suicide. Can you say that at the time of her death she was healthy and well balanced?”

Warren shrugged. “She was as healthy and well balanced as most people. I’m quite confident that she did not kill herself.”

“No crises in her life? No recent breakups with lovers, financial worries?”

“There was nothing,” he said carefully, “that would lead me to believe Mary Ellen Ames was suicidal.”

“Okay.” Horowitz paused. “Now, then. The other possibility, Doctor, is that she was murdered.”

Warren said nothing.

“There’s no evidence of it,” said Horowitz after a moment. “But it would help us to know of anybody who might’ve had reason to kill her. Spurned lovers, for example.”

Warren turned to me.

I said, “You don’t have to talk about anybody else.”

Warren looked at Horowitz and shrugged.

“You’re refusing to answer my question?” said the policeman.

“Yes, I guess so.”

“You saying that if you knew someone who might have a motive to kill her, you wouldn’t tell me?”

“Lieutenant,” said Warren, “I don’t want to be uncooperative. If Mary Ellen Ames was murdered, I would be outraged and I would very much want her killer to be apprehended. But you’ve got to understand. My patients tell me all their secrets, things they tell absolutely nobody else. Many of these things they don’t even know for themselves until we’ve commenced our work. We must wrestle these things up to the surface of their consciousness from where they have been buried and repressed. Painful, difficult, very personal, and sensitive things. Once these things are brought out, we must then examine them, analyze them, test them against objective reality. Psychiatric patients—indeed, virtually all people—have distorted concepts of reality. Their versions of reality may not be what is in fact real. A patient may think somebody is out to get her, wants to kill her, hates her, whatever. Paranoia is almost universal among psychiatric patients. So if—and I’m just saying if—if Mary Ellen had told me that someone she knew wanted to kill her, I would not accept that as truth. I would accept it as
her
truth, yes, but not as objective truth. Everything I know about her and everything I know about all the people in her life came to me distorted through that peculiar filter we call her consciousness. Her ego, her idea of herself and her world and her place in it. It was my job to help her reduce that distortion. That takes a very long time.” He shrugged.

“Meaning,” said Horowitz, “you’re not going to answer my question.”

“Yes, sir. It would be irresponsible of me and a violation of Mary Ellen’s privacy.”

“She’s dead,” said Horowitz.

Warren shrugged.

“What about a guy named Dave Finn?” said Horowitz.

Warren shook his head.

Horowitz sighed. He turned to me and gave me a wry smile. “Thanks a lot, pal.”

I nodded. “We’re all doing our jobs here.”

“Yeah.” He closed his notebook, shoved it into the inside pocket of his jacket, and stood up. He held his hand out to Warren. “Well, thanks, Doctor. You helped on the suicide thing, anyway. And really, there doesn’t seem to be any reason to suspect murder here, so unless something pops up, I guess they’ll be calling it an accident.” To me he said, “How’s the mother doing?”

I shrugged. “She’s all right, considering. But listen. The mother told me that Mary Ellen was an excellent swimmer, for whatever that’s worth.”

He nodded. “Okay. That’s something. I’ll tell them. I’m just a helper here, trying to keep the jurisdictional relationships healthy. When the ME gives his verdict, Coyne, I’ll let you know. I assume the mother will want to know, huh?”

“Yes,” I said. “So will I.”

“Thanks again, Doctor. See you, Counselor.” Horowitz headed for the door. Warren got up and followed him out. I stayed where I was.

Warren was back a minute later. He sat down heavily across from me. “There are some things I didn’t tell him,” he said.

“I imagine there was plenty you didn’t tell him.”

“Well, I want to tell you. I can trust you to keep it to yourself?”

“Do I infer that you’ve hired me?”

“Of course. I didn’t expect you to come over here on a Friday night out of friendship.”

“It’s always best to keep friendship and business separate,” I said. “I’ll have Julie send you a bill. So, yes, you are my client. What you tell me is privileged.”

He stared at me for a moment, then let his eyes slide away. As he began to talk, his eyes remained focused on something beyond my left shoulder. “Mary Ellen Ames was an extraordinary young woman,” he said. “It’s a shame you didn’t know her. It would help you understand my problem with all this better. She was brilliant, witty, creative, mercurial. She suffered tremendously from her father’s death, and it affected all of her subsequent relationships. There was a deep anger in her, and at the same time a powerful love, both directed toward this man whom she was denied the opportunity to make peace with. She blamed her mother, believed she was caught in an Oedipal-type contest with her, knew it was completely irrational, but couldn’t help herself. She avoided her mother because she knew that her anger toward her was unwarranted, and that made her feel profoundly guilty. She sought—obsessively—that unconditional father’s love that she felt had been cruelly stolen from her by his death.”

“Penis envy, huh?”

Warren smiled quickly. “Sure. If you want.”

“That’s why she ran off with the professor,” I said. “Still trying to seduce her father.”

Warren looked up at me. “Yes. But it didn’t work for her. That man wasn’t her father. Nor was he any kind of reasonable substitute. But she wasn’t attracted to men her own age. Mary Ellen had many lovers, and many men who simply used her. All were older men. Men in her father’s image.”