No Witness But the Moon(70)

“Today? On a Sunday?”

“Unless your religion precludes it.”

Does football count?

“I’m pretty booked all week otherwise,” said Cantor. “I don’t normally do appointments on a Sunday. But I’m happy to put the time aside for a patient who really needs it.”

Co?o! She thought he was a head case. He hesitated.

“Let me guess,” said Cantor. “You would rather have a colonoscopy than visit a psychiatrist.”

Vega laughed. “Yeah. I guess I would. Okay. How about ten A.M.?

“That would be fine.” She gave him an address in Wickford. He was hoping not to have to go back to Wickford so soon.

“Is that an office?”

“My house. I have a private office entrance. Sort of like some dentists.”

“I’d rather have root canal.”

Vega hadn’t been back to Wickford since the shooting. He told himself it was just a place. No big deal. He texted his lawyer and Joy to let both of them know he was seeing a shrink like they’d wanted. He hoped this might make up for his behavior with Joy last night. He didn’t hear back.

Wickford was almost an hour south of his house. He managed the first part of the drive just fine. He felt calm and reasonably collected on the highway. The sky was a hard shell of blue and pierced with a bright morning sun that promised to fade quickly under December’s heavy baggage of night. Vega kept his mind blank by alternating his music CDs with sports talk on the radio.

But as soon as he made the turnoff to Wickford, everything changed. A headache throbbed at the back of his head. His neck felt like someone had tried to dislocate it from his shoulders. His fingers developed pins and needles. He flexed and unflexed his hands at the steering wheel as he navigated the winding roads and backcountry horse farms. He relied on his GPS to get him to Ellen Cantor’s place and damned if it didn’t take him in practically the same direction as Ricardo Luis’s house.

You’re behaving like an idiot, he told himself. You’re acting like some traumatized kid—like Marcela’s daughter at the hospital last night. That poor girl had had no hand in the cards she’d been dealt. But Vega? His misery was of his own making.

Calm down. Control your breathing. He was sweating profusely. The trees, the stone walls, the white clapboard houses—all of it filled him with dread. He rolled down his windows and gulped in air that had the same bite of wood smoke mixed with decaying leaves that he’d smelled Friday night.

The scent took him back, hard and fast. His mouth went dry. His stomach tightened. He tried to think about anything except how much he wanted to puke up the bagel he’d grabbed on his way out. He drove past the road where all the cop cars had been parked on the night of the shooting. Just seeing the bent signpost where yellow crime scene tape still fluttered made his whole body shake.

Bicho es! He was going to be sick. Vega pulled his truck to the side of the road and vomited in the leaves by the woods. Thank God this wasn’t Adele’s neighborhood where every inch of grass was mowed and trimmed. Thank God this wasn’t Luis’s driveway. At least here, maybe the rain would wash it away.

He grabbed some water from his truck and tried to wash out his mouth. He popped breath mints and left his door open to cool himself down while he tried to gather his composure. His striped Oxford shirt felt clammy and sweaty. He’d nicked his chin shaving this morning. I can’t even be trusted with a razor anymore. How can I ever be trusted again with a gun?

By the time he showed up at Ellen Cantor’s office door on the side of her sprawling white colonial, he looked every bit the mess he felt. He begged his stomach to obey him as he rang her doorbell. Whatever else he felt about visiting a psychiatrist, he did not want to upchuck on her doorstep.

Ellen Cantor looked nothing like Wendy, and for that, he was grateful. She was short and stocky with curly silver hair and thick eyebrows that overshadowed all her subtler features—her swanlike neck, her high cheekbones, her small, dainty mouth. She had beautiful hands with long, expressive fingers. Piano fingers. He wondered if she played.

She flicked her eyes down him as she extended a hand. Her touch was warm and firm.

“Detective Vega? Are you all right?”

He’d forgotten how beat-up he looked from the fight last night. Plus, he was pale and shaky from the sudden bout of vomiting earlier. He wasn’t about to tell her that, however.

“I think I’m coming down with a virus.”

She didn’t buy it. He didn’t care. She opened the door wider and beckoned him in. She had a small, cheerful waiting area with yellow checked gingham furniture and flouncy curtains on the windows. Martha Stewart on steroids. Fortunately, her office was a little more sedate. Deep rust-colored couches and chairs. Some leather and dark wood. It was hard enough talking to a psychiatrist he’d never met before. It would be harder still in a room that looked like a sorority den.

He took a seat on a plush leather sofa. He didn’t know where to begin. Was he allowed to talk about everything?

“This is confidential, right?” he grunted.

“I am bound by HIPAA laws, Detective. I can’t reveal anything about our sessions without your written consent, not even to a court of law.”

“Okay.” He didn’t know if he should tell her that he might have killed a different man. Did it matter for therapy purposes? Dead was dead, wasn’t it?