David Jackson - The Helper

She blinks. Once. Twice. Then, without further breaks in her eye contact with Doyle she says, ‘All right, Andrew, let’s go. This meeting is over.’

Doyle turns his gaze on Vasey. ‘You can go if you want, Doctor, but if you want my advice, you should stay. This isn’t looking good for you at the moment. Two people are dead, and you’re the only thing we can find that connects them. Maybe it’s just coincidence. Maybe somebody’s trying to set you up. Who knows? But if you’re innocent, then I’m sure you’ll want to get to the bottom of this as much as we do. This is your chance to do that.’

Friedrich now also turns to Vasey. ‘Andrew, the only people trying to set you up here are the police. That means any advice they offer you is less than worthless. If they had anything on you, they would have charged you by now. Let’s get out of here.’

She waits. Doyle and Holden wait. Vasey wavers, his mouth opening and closing.

‘I’ll stay,’ he says.

Friedrich stares at him in disbelief. When she twists back in her chair, she folds her arms in what seems a petulant gesture, the action pushing up her breasts.

‘So,’ says Doyle, ‘do you still want to deny that you ever met Cindy Mellish in your office, whether she was officially registered as a client or not?’

‘I never met that girl,’ says Vasey. ‘And I also want to put on record that I have never acted in anything other than a professional manner in my consultations. The idea that I would physically assault somebody is. . it’s abhorrent.’

Doyle thinks the good doctor is starting to sound a little melodramatic. He wants to ramp up the pressure. In particular, he wants to ask about Lorna Bonnow, but he knows that if he throws that in he’ll have a lot of explaining to do to Holden.

‘What would you say if I asked you to open up your client files to us, Dr Vasey?’

It’s Friedrich who answers. ‘He’d tell you to take a hike. Those files are confidential. A psychologist’s reputation is built on trust. A lot of people tell Andrew a lot of things. Very intimate things. They do so in the knowledge that he won’t go divulging their personal details to everybody that asks for them. Next question.’

‘We could get a court order.’

‘You think? On what grounds? That one of Dr Vasey’s former clients was murdered? Big deal.’

‘On the grounds that Dr Vasey is the common factor in two homicide cases currently under investigation.’

‘Hello? Didn’t we cover this already? You’ve got one guy who Andrew saw twice, and you’ve got a woman he never met even once, despite your continued insistence that he did. What kind of common factor is that? I bet I could find two dead people who both ate at Katz’s at some point in their lives. Wouldn’t mean that the owner poisoned them. But if you think you can get a lame duck like that to fly in front of a judge, then good luck to you, Detective.’

Doyle is starting to feel more than a little pissed now. Not least because he knows that she is correct. He tries to appear as though she hasn’t rattled him, although he suspects she already scents triumph.

‘Doctor, where were you last night, around midnight?’

‘Here we go,’ Friedrich mutters.

Vasey says, ‘I was at home. Where else would I be?’

‘At home. Are you sure?’

‘What do you mean, am I sure? Of course I’m sure.’

‘And what were you doing?’

‘At midnight? I was in bed.’

‘You were in bed.’

Doyle goes silent then. He gives Vasey his best withering stare. Any second now, he thinks. The beads of sweat, the loosening of the collar, and then he’ll break.

‘All right, Detective,’ says Friedrich. ‘Now that we’ve established my client’s nocturnal habits and found them to be completely mundane, can we bring this interview to a close? Dr Vasey is a very busy man, and I am sure you are too when you’re not going on fishing expeditions like this one.’

Any second now.

‘Dr Vasey, would you like to reconsider your previous answer?’

All eyes are on Doyle now, and he knows they’re all wondering what’s gotten into him. He figures that Holden in particular will think he’s flipped.

‘I, uhm. . I went out. For a short while.’

Gotcha, thinks Doyle. But now he knows the others are all trying to work out what made him push it.

‘You went out. At what time?’

‘I’m not sure exactly. Eleven-fifteen. Eleven-thirty. In there somewhere.’

‘And what time did you get back to the apartment?’

‘About two.’

‘Two o’clock in the morning. You were out of your apartment from eleven-fifteen or thereabouts until two o’clock.’

‘I think so. Yes.’

‘Did you go out in your car?’

‘No. I walked.’

‘You don’t mind me saying, that’s a strange time to be going for a stroll. Where did you go?’

‘Park Avenue.’

‘Where on Park Avenue?’

‘Corner of Sixty-second Street.’

Exactly where Gonzo lost him, thinks Doyle.

‘And what was so fascinating about that location that made you schlep all the way over there so late in the day?’

‘It’s not so far. Just a couple of blocks.’

‘Dr Vasey, I don’t care if you only went as far as your closet.

What I want to know is why you felt the sudden urge to go there at that time of night.’

He looks to Friedrich again. She gives him the green light.

‘I, uhm, I got a call.’

‘A call? You mean on the telephone? Who from?’

‘Well, the thing is, I’m not sure any longer. It was kind of weird.’

Doyle feels something inside his abdomen do a back-flip. Oh shit, he thinks. I know what’s coming.

For the first time in the interview, Holden puts a question. Because he’s intrigued, whereas Doyle’s interest has suddenly waned.

‘Weird how?’

‘The guy on the phone said his name was Waxman, and that he was a neighbor of my ex-wife’s. She’s the one who lives at the Park Avenue address, by the way. Now, I happen to know that her neighbor is called Waxman, so I had no reason to doubt him. He told me that he’d heard some weird noises and then a scream coming from her apartment, and that he’d been ringing her doorbell for the past fifteen minutes and couldn’t get an answer. He also told me he couldn’t get hold of the building superintendent to open her door, so that’s why he was calling me, to see if I had a key.’

Doyle nods along with Holden. Trying to pretend that this is a weird one, all right. Preparing himself to look suitably surprised when the punchline gets delivered.

Holden says, ‘So you went over there. What happened next?’

‘Nothing. I mean, it was business as usual. The doorman had no idea what I was talking about, and when I got upstairs there was no sign of Waxman. The hallway was empty. No signs of any problems whatsoever. So I rang my ex’s doorbell. A minute later she opened the door. She was fine. Said she also had no idea what was going on.’

Doyle sees how puzzled Holden looks, and he can imagine the thought processes going on in his mind. The story is too crazy not to be believed. And yet why would anyone choose to pull a stunt like that? If they were trying to set Vasey up, why not just leave him in bed, with no alibi for the time Hanrahan was being murdered, instead of moving him somewhere where presumably his location could be verified?

Because, my dear Watson, Doyle wants to say, the caller somehow knew that Vasey was being watched, and saw his opportunity to add a little more fun to his game. He was playing me. Again.

Holden says, ‘Do you know anyone who would make a prank call like that?’

‘No. I’d never heard this voice before. It sounded almost British. A little like that actor, whatshisname. .’