Patricia Cornwell - From Potter's Field

I went on, 'The more he decompensates, the greater the likelihood he'll make a mistake and we'll get him.'

'I would also assume he is at his most dangerous right now,' she said. 'He has no boundaries. He even killed Santa Claus.'

'He killed a sheriff who plays Santa once a year. And this sheriff also was heavily involved in drugs. Maybe drugs were the connection between the two of them.'

'Tell me about you.'

I looked away from her and took another deep breath. At last I was calmer. Anna was one of the few people in this world who made me feel I did not need to be in charge. She was a psychiatrist. I had known her since my move to Richmond, and she had helped me through my breakup with Mark, then through his death. She had the heart and hands of a musician.

'Like him, I am decompensating,' I confessed in frustration.

'I must know more.'

'That's why I'm here.' I looked at her. 'That's why I'm in this gown, in this bed. It's why I almost shot my niece. It's why people are outside my door worried about me. People are driving the streets and watching my house, worrying about me. Everywhere, people are worrying about me.'

'Sometimes we have to call in the troops.'

'I don't want troops,' I said impatiently. 'I want to be left alone.'

'Ha. I personally think you need an entire army. No one can fight this man alone.'

'You're a psychiatrist,' I said. 'Why don't you dissect him?'

'I don't treat character disorders,' she said. 'Of course he is sociopathic.'

She walked to the window, parted curtains and looked out. 'It is still snowing. Do you believe that? I may have to stay here with you tonight. I have had patients over the years who were almost not of this world, and I did try to disengage from them quickly.

'That's the thing with these criminals who become the subject of legend. They go to dentists, psychiatrists, hairstylists. We cannot help but encounter them just like we encounter anyone. In Germany once I treated a man for a year until I realized he had drowned three women in the bathtub.

'That was his thing. He would pour them wine and wash them. When he would get to their feet, he would suddenly grab their ankles and yank. In those big tubs, you cannot get out if someone is holding your feet up in the air.' She paused. 'I am not a forensic psychiatrist.'

'I know that.'

'I could have been,' Dr. Zenner went on. 'I considered it many times. Did you know?'

'No, I didn't.'

'So I will tell you why I avoided that specialty. I cannot spend so much time with monsters. It is bad enough for people like you who take care of their victims. But I think to sit in the same room with the Gaults of the world would poison my soul.' She paused. 'You see, I have a terrible confession to make.'

She turned around and looked at me.

'I don't give a damn why any of them do it,' she said, eyes flashing. 'I think they should all be hanged.'

'I won't disagree with you,' I said.

'But this does not mean I don't have an instinct about him. I would call it a woman's instinct, actually.'

'About Gault?'

'Yes. You have met my cat, Chester,' she said.

'Oh, yes. He is the fattest cat I have ever seen.'

She did not smile. 'He will go out and catch a mouse. And he will play with it to death. It is really quite sadistic. Then he finally kills it and what does he do? He brings it in the house. He carries it up on the bed and leaves it on my pillow. This is his present to me.'

'What are you suggesting, Anna?' I was chilled again.

'I believe this man has a weird significant relationship with you. As if you are mother, and he brings you what he kills.'

'That is unthinkable,' I said.

'It excites him to get your attention, it is my guess. He wants to impress you. When he murders someone, it is his gift to you. And he knows you will study it very carefully and try to discover his every stroke, almost like a mother looking at her little boy's drawings he brings home from school. You see, his evil work is his art.'

I thought of the charge made at the gallery in Shockhoe Slip. I wondered what art Gault had bought.

'He knows you will analyze and think of him all the time, Kay.'

'Anna, you're suggesting these deaths might be my fault.'

'Nonsense. If you start believing that then I need to start seeing you in my office. Regularly.'

'How much danger am I in?'

'I must be careful here.' She stopped to think. 'I know what others must say. That's why there are many police.'

'What do you say?'

'I personally do not feel you are in great physical danger from him. Not this minute. But I think everyone around you is. You see, he is making his reality yours.'

'Please explain.'

'He has no one. He would like for you to have no one.'

'He has no one because of what he does,' I said angrily.

'All I can say is every time he kills, he is more isolated. And these days, so are you. There is a pattern. Do you see it?'

She had moved next to me. She placed her hand on my forehead.

'I'm not sure.'

'You have no fever,' she said.

'Sheriff Brown hated me.'

'See, another present. Gault thought you would be pleased. He killed the mouse for you and dragged it into your morgue.'

The thought made me sick.

She withdrew a stethoscope from a jacket pocket and put it around her neck. Rearranging my gown, she listened to my heart and lungs, her face serious.

'Breathe deeply for me, please.' She moved the head of the stethoscope around my back. 'Again.'

She took my blood pressure and felt my neck. She was a rare, old-world physician. Anna Zenner treated the whole person, not just the mind.

'Your pressure's low,' she said.

'So what else is new.'

'What do they give you here?'

'Ativan.'

The cuff made a ripping sound as she removed it from my arm. 'Ativan is okay. It has no appreciable effect on the respiratory or cardiovascular systems. It is fine for you. I can write a prescription.'

'No,' I said.

'An antianxiety agent is a good idea just now, I think.'

'Anna,' I said. 'Drugs are not what I need just now.'

She patted my hand. 'You are not decompensating.'

She got up and put on her coat.

'Anna,' I said, 'I have a favor to ask. How is your house at Hilton Head?'

She smiled. 'It is still the best antianxiety agent I know. And I've told you so how many times?'

'Maybe this time I will listen,' I said. 'I may have to take a trip near there, and I would like to be as private as possible.'

Dr. Zenner dug keys from her pocketbook and took one off the ring. Next she dashed off something on a blank prescription and set it and the key on a table by my bed.

'No need to do anything,' she said simply. 'But I leave for you the key and instructions. Should you get the urge in the middle of the night, you don't even need to let me know.'

'That is so kind of you,' I said. 'I doubt I'll need it long.'

'But you should need it long. It is on the ocean in Palmetto Dunes, a small, modest house near the Hyatt. I will not be using it anytime soon and don't think you will be bothered there. In fact, you can just be Dr. Zenner.' She chuckled. 'No one knows me there anyway.'

'Dr. Zenner,' I mused dryly. 'So now I'm German.'

'Oh, you are always German.' She opened the door. 'I don't care what you have been told.'

She left and I sat up straighter, energetic and alert. I got out of bed and was in the closet when I heard my door open. I walked out, expecting Lucy. Instead, Paul Tucker was inside my room. I was too surprised to be embarrassed as I stood barefoot with nothing on but a gown that barely covered anything.

He averted his gaze as I returned to bed and pulled up the covers.

'I apologize. Captain Marino said it was all right to come in,' said Richmond's chief of police, who did not seem particularly sorry, no matter what he claimed.