Citizen Insane

Chapter Fifteen





THE BEAR SLIPPED TO THE floor. Bunny started wringing her hands and mumbling incoherently. I didn’t have much patience for her little nervous spells, as they often turned into big Freakoid from the planet Crackpot episodes, but I tried to muster some empathy. “Are you okay?” I rubbed her arm hoping to comfort her.

She reached into her purse and pulled out a bottle of pills. “I just need one of these.” She shook the bottle and her eyes nearly glazed over just looking at them. “Maybe I’ll take two. They calm my nerves.”

“What are they?”

“Anti-anxiety pills. Waldo gave them to me.”

“You mean you don’t have a prescription from your doctor?” I snatched the bottle from her hands and inspected further. No label. “Bunny, you have no idea what these are.”

“Waldo’s a psychotherapist. I’m sure he knows what he’s doing. He said he gets them wholesale or something.”

Things were beginning to make sense. I had never been a huge Bunny Bergen fan, but she never seemed insane. Not until yesterday’s episode on my front lawn. “How long have you been taking these?”

“I don’t know exactly—a week, maybe. What’s today?”

“Tuesday.”

“He brought them over last Monday or Tuesday. He’s been so kind and helpful. Listening to me go on and on about my problems.”

“Have you had any other. . .” I was trying to put it nicely, “. . . bad experiences lately? You know, like yesterday at my house?”

Her eyes brightened. “Yes! I’ve been having blackouts. Not fainting, but where I don’t remember things for a few minutes sometimes. My boys told me the other day that I was walking around the house looking for our dog, Princess, but she died two years ago. I didn’t remember it at all.”

“You didn’t think that was strange?”

“I did. I asked Waldo and he said it was a symptom of my anxiety and I should just double the dose.”

“Dose? There’s no dosage written here.”

“He said take one pill four times a day, or if my anxiety got really bad, two pills each time.”

“Bunny, are you crazy?” I shouted. “You don’t even know what these are! They could be laced with LSD for all you know.”

Bunny’s face scrunched up like a dried pumpkin and she started to cry.

I felt like the scum of the earth. Counseling was obviously not my forte.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “That was mean and insensitive of me. I’m just worried for you. This is not the way to handle your problems. Who knows what these are? You’re probably making things worse by taking them.”

She was wiping tears and snot from her face, so I found a couple of mangled tissues in my purse and handed them to her.

“You’re right. But I don’t have the money right now. My divorce has wiped me out. I’ll probably have to sell the house. I can’t even afford a car. The Jaguar is my dad’s.”

“Which divorce? Your most recent?”

She cocked her head and gave me a what-are-you-talking-about kind of look.

“I mean, this isn’t your first, right?”

“Yes.”

“Oh . . .”

“Why?”

“I’d just heard . . . never mind, it doesn’t matter.”

“I know,” she looked me straight in the eyes. “You heard I’ve been divorced twice.”

“Well, four times actually.”

“Four? Why do people say these mean things about me?”

I wanted to melt into the car seat. Surely I had participated in spreading these untruths.

“I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.”

She felt compelled to tell me her story anyway. “Charlie—my oldest boy—is from a disaster of a relationship, but we were never married. When I found out I was pregnant, the jerk skipped town. Never heard from him again. I married Richard ten years ago. He adopted Charlie, then we had Michael a year later. We bought this house right after he was born. Two years ago, Richard-the-wonderful hooked up with an old girlfriend from high school and slapped me with divorce papers. He’s done everything he can to bankrupt me. Now that the divorce is final, he’s going back for full custody. He claims I’m not a fit mother. And I can’t afford the lawyer’s fees. I don’t know what to do.”

Here I was, a mother who preached to my daughters daily about not gossiping and not listening to gossip. Don’t listen to what others tell you, I say all of the time. Find out for yourself. Geez. With that level of hypocrisy I could run for political office.

“Where are your boys right now?” I asked.

“I took them to Richard’s.”

“Oh, no.”

“I didn’t have a choice. I have the gun. I was there when Michelle got shot. Maybe the shooter saw me. I needed to make sure they were safe.”

“Okay, well, when this is all over, I’m going to help you with that. Right now, let’s get you some chamomile tea instead of these pills, okay? We can go to my house.”

Bunny nodded.

“We have enough evidence here to give to the police, so I think that should be our next step. But I want to talk to Howard first.”

“I’m really hungry.”

“Me, too. I know a guy that makes a mean ziti at Fiorenza’s.”

“I don’t want to eat at a restaurant right now though.”

“Me either. Want to order take out?”

She smiled. “Sure.”

I smiled too. I liked Bunny Bergen. “Cool.”

After failing to reach Howard or Colt, I left a message on Colt’s voice mail to check out Oswald’s Fuchs’ credentials as a psychotherapist, and if he happened to run into Howard, tell him to call me. I started the van and motored out of the small parking lot, heading toward Fiorenza’s.

“Thank you for being so kind to me, Barb.”

“I’m not sure I deserve that, Bunny.”

“No, you’re a really nice person. Howard is a lucky man.”

Since she brought up the subject, I decided to go with it. “Bunny, are you . . . interested in my husband?”

“No! Did someone tell you that?”

“Waldo. He said you were obsessed with Howard. And Colt said you came by his apartment one day.”

She shook her head and I could tell she was starting to fume. “It’s not what you think.”

“What should I think? And why was he called to your house yesterday?”

She turned her attention out the window, watching the scenery instead of looking at me. Finally, she answered. “Apparently—this is what I’ve been told, because I don’t remember it—before I walked to your house, I called the FBI in hysterics.” She took a deep breath. “And mentioned his name.”

“Why? I don’t understand. Why Howard?”

“Oh boy,” she squirmed in her seat. “If I tell you . . .” she stopped short of what she was going to say. “No. You don’t want me to tell you and you have to know that Howard loves you very much. That’s all I’m going to say.”

“But—”

“Trust me. You have no idea how much he loves you.”

The smile on her face would have comforted me, except I had just noticed a dark car in my rearview mirror that had made all of the same turns we had made.

“Bunny,” I said. “Don’t freak out, but I think we’re being followed.”