Stephen White - Warning Signs

It told him something: Raymond whistled between chews.

It took about five minutes for me to explain Naomi Bigg's situation-her daughter's rape, her husband's jail sentence, her son's friendship with Ramp and their preoccupation with retribution. All the details I could remember about the wouldn't-it-be-cool games.

His first question surprised me. He asked, "Your patient's white?"

Raymond wasn't. I wondered about the question. "Yes, why?"

" 'Cause, for some reason, black kids don't tend to do these things."

Raymond gave me a moment to digest his remark, then asked me to repeat the part that had to do with Royal Peterson's murder.

I did, finally adding, "Lauren was involved in the plea bargain of the kid who raped Naomi Bigg's daughter."

"Ahh," Ray said. "That explains your tone."

"My tone?"

"My impression, listening to you, is that you don't like this woman you're treating. I'm not accustomed to hearing negative countertransference so clearly from you. But now you say that you fear your wife's in danger-that explains your negative feelings."

"I'm pushing her, Ray. Pushing her hard. Her resistance… is intense. She desperately wants to believe her son is uninvolved in anything other than some retribution fantasies. I've known her-what?-three days and already I'm pounding away at the resistance, and the reality is that I don't have the alliance to get away with it. She's getting angry at me."

Raymond chewed methodically, appreciating each mouthful of food the way that I imagined Mozart appreciated each note of a concerto. After Ray swallowed, he asked, "Whose idea was the four sessions this week? Yours or hers?"

A simple question. But one that told me that Raymond Farley already understood the crux of why I'd asked him for supervision on this case.

I sighed involuntarily. "Mine."

"You're trying to goad her into taking some action against her son, aren't you? Confront him, turn him in?"

"I suppose I am. That would protect Lauren. And maybe a whole lot of other people, as well."

"Sure it would. But it's not your job. Here's what I'm thinking: Given your concerns about Lauren's safety, you probably shouldn't be treating this patient at all. You know that you can't be objective as a psychotherapist if you're putting your wife's interests in front of your patient's interests."

"Raymond, that's the dilemma. Given my concerns about Lauren's safety, there's no way in the world I'm not going to treat this woman. If Lauren's really at risk, I have to be in a position to know what's coming next. If I refer her to someone else, Lauren could be in danger and I wouldn't even know it."

He kissed the last bit of sauce from the tips of his fingers and wiped his hands with his napkin. He said, "If you've already made your decision, what do you want from me?"

He read my reaction in my expression-I imagined I looked as though I'd been slapped in the face-and he grinned at me kindly. "Step back, Alan. You want from me exactly what she wants from you. She wants you to validate her inaction in regard to her concerns about her son. You? You want me to validate your inaction in regard to your concerns about continuing this treatment. You won't do what your patient wants you to do, and even though I've been bribed with an excellent sandwich, I won't do what you want me to do. I'm not about to tell you that you have a 'get out of jail, free' card on this one."

With some effort, I managed to smile back at him. "I actually didn't think you would, Raymond. Help me with something else then. This kid-her son-how dangerous is he? Because of my anxiety over Lauren, maybe I'm misreading the facts. You work with more young people than I do."

"What do you know about him?"

I told him everything Naomi had revealed about her son, Paul.

When I was through, Raymond leaned back and rested his weight on his hands. "There're some concerns there, no doubt about it. I've been on a committee at Wardenburg trying to help the university develop criteria for identifying kids who might be at risk of violent acting out. Your patient's son has some warning signs, that's for sure."

"What criteria has your committee developed?"

"We started with the criteria the FBI proposed and we're modifying them slightly." He held up one of his big hands, flicking out one finger after another as he ticked off the criteria. "One, kids who are on the outside socially and have verbalized their anger at popular kids, or even bullies. That fits this kid. Two, kids who have made overt threats, especially threats to kill. That fits. Three, kids with a prior mental health history. That fits. Four, kids who feel that they've been wronged, that they're victims. That fits. Five, kids with a history of the troublesome triad-fire setting, bed-wetting, cruelty to animals. I'm assuming that you don't know enough about his history to confirm that one, do you?"

"No."

He gave me his wide, all-knowing grin again. "You know what they say? With four out of five, you get egg rolls."

"You're not making me feel any better, Raymond."

"Is that my job? Helping you feel better? How about I just give you a massage. That should help."

"Funny."

He touched his watch. "Couple more minutes, Alan. Then I have to hit the road back to Denver. Damn turnpike, you know?"

I knew all about the damn turnpike. I said, "I'm thinking of leaking some of what my patient told me-the part about the boys' plans to use explosives. I have a friend on the Boulder Police Department, and I'm thinking of suggesting he find a way to sweep Royal Peterson's house for explosives."

Raymond's eyebrows rose like a pair of levitating caterpillars. "You're thinking of what?"

"I know it sounds absurd but hear me out. What if those two boys were in Royal's house to plant an explosive device and Royal discovered them after it was already in place and there was a scuffle and they killed Royal? Then the kids ran. The bomb, or device, or whatever, could still be there, right?"

Raymond gazed at me as though he was wondering what psychotropic medicine I needed.

I pressed on. "When I talk to my detective friend, I wouldn't reveal my patient's name, wouldn't even say that a patient told me. I'd just make an oblique suggestion about my concerns, just enough to get my friend to get the police department to look for explosives at Royal's house."

Raymond's face could hardly have been more skeptical. "I've heard your rationalization. I'm still wondering about your reasoning."

"What if there is a bomb planted there? Somebody could get killed if it went off. Royal's wife, Susan, Susan's health aide-somebody. If it turns out that nothing's there, I just look a little silly. My cop friend is used to that."

Raymond didn't quite smile and he didn't quite start shaking his head. But it was close. "Say there is something there. And the police find it… What if your patient's son's fingerprints are on the device? In effect, you've turned him in to the police, based on confidential information you had no right to divulge."

"Lesser of two evils. Tarasoff says I have to give a warning if I feel that someone's in danger based on what a patient tells me."

He opened a palm and held it up like a traffic cop. The pink edges of the soft flesh around his palm surprised me, even though I'd seen Raymond's hands a hundred times before. He said, "Not quite right. The court's Tarasoff decision says that you have to provide a warning if your patient makes an overt threat against an identifiable person. Based on what you've told me, your patient hasn't threatened anyone, Alan. No one. And regardless, I've not seen any court decision that extends the Tarasoff ruling to include hearsay. This isn't your patient threatening anybody. This is your patient talking about what somebody else might be planning." He removed his eyeglasses and blew at one lens. "If Lauren weren't involved-if you didn't think she was at risk-you wouldn't be considering this kind of action and you know it."