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?
She got him a glass of water. He sipped it and tried to recount all the salient details he could think of about the shooting. Time. Date. Place. Number of shots. Wounds to the victim. Whatever he’d told Isadora Jenkins would probably work for Ellen Cantor. He left out last night’s fistfight and his lovely little vomiting session this morning. Then he sat back, looked at his watch, and pretended not to at the same time. Forty minutes to go and he’d be finished.
Cantor had a yellow legal pad in front of her but she didn’t write down a single word he’d said. Not one. Jesus. He interviewed people all the time and he wrote down everything.
Vega shifted his weight on the leather couch. He jangled his keys and change in his pocket. He felt like a kid in the principal’s office. Thirty-seven minutes to go.
“I’d like you to call me ‘Ellen.’ May I call you ‘Jimmy’?”
Vega shrugged. “Sure. Whatever.”
Cantor leaned forward. “You don’t want to be here, do you?”
“No offense, ma’am—Ellen. But my ex is a psychologist and I never saw any of this stuff working for her or me or anyone else.”
“By ‘stuff,’ what do you mean?”
“You know—” He stretched to avoid her gaze. “Having people sit around navel-gazing and talking about the time they didn’t get what they wanted for their birthday when they were ten.”
“I agree.”
“You do?” Good. This would be faster than he thought.
“Which is why I would never put you through that. Tell me, how are you eating?”
“How am I eating?” The question surprised him. “Okay, I guess.”
“Did you have breakfast this morning?”
“A bagel. But uh”—he jiggled his legs—“I kinda threw it up on the way over.”
“Is that happening a lot?”
“No. But—I’m not really hungry most of the time.”
“How about concentration?”
“I don’t know . . . I’m sort of like a goldfish right now. I can’t think about anything for more than two seconds.”
“So you feel restless and antsy a lot?”
“Yeah—like I’ve got about ten cups of coffee in me.”
“How about sleep?”
“What’s that?” He threw out the comment lightly but one of the things he was hoping Cantor would give him today was Ambien. He really, really needed a good night’s sleep, and if he had to induce it chemically—well then, so be it. “I can’t sleep for more than maybe an hour and a half at a stretch. Maybe you can like, give me a prescription?”
“Pills are a short-term solution at best,” said Cantor. “I’m not a big believer in them.”
“Oh.” So much for pills.
“Are you talking to friends?”