Stephen White - Blinded

“Yeah. Thanks.” I didn’t know what else to say. Silently and involuntarily my brain was busy translating “to keep her own head from getting bashed in” to a pidgin Spanish version containing cabezas and hachas . Silently but totally voluntarily, I cursed Diane.

“By the way,” Sam added, “I forgot to tell you: The tip the police got on that judge’s husband? About the cocaine? It came from inside the DA’s office. That’s all I could find out. Hope it helps.”

Helps? No, not exactly. All that meant to me was that Jim Zebid, if he learned the same facts that Sam had just disclosed to me-which he most likely would-would have more reason than he already did to believe that it was indeed I who had leaked the information about Jara Heller’s husband’s cocaine problems to Lauren, who had in turn acted on it through some colleague in the DA’s office.

Great.

My second attempt to get out of the office ended almost the exact same way the first had ended: My vibrating pager interfered just before I made it to the door. Once again I dumped my things on the desk. Once again I recognized the phone number on the pager screen.

Gibbs was breathless. She answered before I was certain her phone had even rung. “She just left. Just now! Two minutes ago! How could you? How could you? I trusted you!”

“Gibbs,” I pleaded. “Slow down, slow down. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“She just left. I can’t believe you told her!”

“Who is ‘she,’ Gibbs?”

“Reynoso. That-that-”

“What is it you think I told her? I haven’t spoken with her since Saturday. I didn’t even know she was still in town.” My defensiveness was too reflexive; I was getting frustrated about the repeated accusations from my patients about my indiscretions with their secrets. And it was showing.

Half a beat passed. Hesitation? A pause to reload? I wasn’t sure. But Gibbs’s fury was turned down a notch when she resumed. “You’re saying you didn’t tell her about the other women? You didn’t tell her what I told you this morning?”

It was apparent from her voice that she wasn’t particularly predisposed to believing that I hadn’t spilled the beans.

I, too, hesitated. The “other women” could have been the ones that Gibbs told me Sterling had slept with during their marriage, or they could have been the ones she told me he had killed. But a quick review convinced me that I hadn’t told Carmen Reynoso about either group of other women. I replayed the events in my head thoroughly enough to convince myself that I hadn’t even known about either group before that morning’s session with Gibbs.

Then I remembered that wasn’t exactly true. I had known about Gibbs’s concern about other murder victims for most of a week; I just hadn’t known details until that morning. But the reality was that I hadn’t revealed the facts of Gibbs’s concern to anyone. I was certain of it.

I said, “No, not a word.”

“You didn’t talk with her today?”

“No, Gibbs. I’ve been here at the office since this morning’s appointment with you. I haven’t shared the information you told me this morning with anyone. I wish you would give me permission, but until you do, I won’t share that information with anyone.”

“Well, I’ve never told anyone but you about these other women. How does she know?”

Damn good question.

Damn good.

Gibbs said good-bye after she asked me to change her regular appointment time on Tuesday. I offered her a slot that had just opened up on Wednesday.

I left my things on the desk and wandered around my office.

It wasn’t a small room, nor was it palatial. Fifteen by twenty-two feet, maybe. Space enough for a chunky desk, a file cabinet, a seating area, and a couple of bookcases. Three windows and a solitary French door brought in abundant light. Double doors-not side by side, but back to back-one opening in, one opening out, provided security and soundproofing to the interior hallway that Diane and I shared. We’d spent a bundle during remodeling constructing the interior walls of offset studs and had even set the extra-sound-retardant Sheetrock in channels, all in an effort to reduce noise transmission from the office to the hallway and from office to office. The entire back hallway was separated from the waiting area by a door with a deadbolt lock. After an intrusion years before, Diane’s husband had installed a sophisticated alarm system in the building, too.

I assured myself that there was no way someone could eavesdrop on a psychotherapy session in my office.

What about someone in Diane’s office? Could they have eavesdropped? No, that wasn’t possible. During the course of an average day the only sound I heard through our acoustically deadened adjoining wall was an occasional burst of Diane’s sharp laughter. I couldn’t recall a single instance of overhearing one of her patient’s words. The tones of normal conversation just didn’t make it through the walls.

I plopped down on the sofa and reviewed my day.

No matter from what angle I examined it, I couldn’t remember a solitary indiscretion on my part regarding Gibbs’s admissions to me about the other women. I hadn’t written any of the data in my case notes. And I hadn’t spoken a word about it to anyone.

Not even Sam? No, not even Sam.

Which meant one thing: The cops were developing the same information on their own.

What other conclusion was possible?

The answer to that question would come, unfortunately, soon enough.

Before I left their home, the Wolf sisters invited me to come back in a few days for Thanksgiving supper. They explained that they usually deep-fried a turkey for the large group of family and friends that gathered in their home, but this year they were planning to slow-roast something they called a turducken for the first time, and thought that I would be a perfect addition to their holiday table.

“You deep-fry your turkey?” I said. When I’d first heard about people preparing their birds that way, I thought it was an urban myth, like jackalopes. Then the Boulder Fire Department started answering calls for turkey-fryer fires, and I accepted that it was a real thing, though I still couldn’t figure out what people did with all the leftover oil.

Mary Ellen said, “It’s the best way to do it, absolutely. Moist? Oh, Mr. Purdy. But we’re going to try something new and finally do a turducken this year. Mr. Prudhomme, Mr. Paul Prudhomme from New Orleans”-when she spoke the name of the Louisiana city, it was only one word, and it was absent the w, and when she spoke Mr. Prudhomme’s name, it was with a reverence customarily reserved for heroes or saints-“recommends a very slow oven, so we’ll actually have to start roasting that delight before we go to bed on Wednesday evening. The house should smell like the Lord’s own grandmother’s kitchen when we awaken Thursday morning.”

Mary Pat was the one who recognized the ignorance in my eyes. “A turducken is a Cajun treat, Mr. Purdy. Oyster dressing and andouille sausage and a few other goodies are stuffed into a chicken that is then stuffed into a duck that is then stuffed into a turkey. More dressing is added between each bird during the assembly. It’s all boneless. It’s all delicious.”

I tried to imagine the cascade of flavors that Mary Pat was describing, and I was momentarily lost in the fantasy. My hand crept up the contours of my tummy until my thumb found the lower edge of my sternum. Sculpted in place, my hand could have been a monument to my ambivalence: Part of my hand-the part caressing my gut-honored my usually indulgent appetite, part of it-the thumb on my sternum-honored my cardiologist’s admonitions.