Dante's Poison Read online

  “If only it were as simple as just sleeping. No, I came in here to get some reading done. And to warn you when you got back.”

  I stepped over to my desk and took a swipe at my in-box, which as usual had grown half a foot in my absence. “Warn me about what? Sep isn’t trying to put me on the diversity committee again, is he?”

  “I think he’s temporarily off that scent. Nice move, by the way, getting Alison to take your place.”

  Alison was the newest doctor on our team and a rainbow consultant’s dream: half-African American, half-Cherokee Indian, and a lesbian to boot. If she’d been the beneficiary of affirmative action it was wasted on her after graduating with honors from Johns Hopkins and landing a spot in one of the most prestigious residency programs in the country. I’d been her chief sponsor during the hiring process (not that she needed one), and she repaid the favor by rescuing me from an assignment I considered on a par with being forced to sit through endless screenings of the Jerry Lewis Telethon.

  “Not that,” Josh said. “You’re in the soup with Jonathan again.”

  Jonathan Frain was another of our colleagues, a man who did for pomposity what Elvis did for rock ’n’ roll. Stuffed into his white coat—the kind with his name embroidered on the pocket—he even resembled the King in his later years, though the abundant hair wasn’t fooling anyone. Our relationship had started off poorly when I’d pointed out a methodological flaw in one of his research projects, and blossomed like a cold sore from there. These days we locked horns over matters ranging from the inconsequential (what brand of pods to stock in the office kitchen) to the serious (whether Graham should be barred from visiting our offices except by appointment). Josh likened our warfare to the Battle of the Somme, which didn’t please me inasmuch as it implied I wasn’t getting the upper hand.

  “What did I do to ruffle his scales now?”

  “Not sure, but I think it may have to do with that letter you sent to the American Psychiatric Journal.”

  “About the checklist for depression?”

  “That’s the one. I saw him marching purple-faced into Sep’s office with the latest edition rolled up in his fist like he was going to swat the cat with it.”

  Jonathan was part of a professional committee considering changes to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Then in its fourth edition, the DSM is the Julia Child cookbook of the psychiatric profession, dictating the recipes for some 297 mental disorders and therefore key to obtaining reimbursement under most insurance plans. Its revisions, every ten years or so, are as closely watched as the Super Bowl and just as hotly contested. Currently under scrutiny were the diagnostic criteria for establishing clinical depression, and, having some strong views on the subject, I’d fired off a letter to the editor criticizing the committee’s latest draft.

  “What’s the problem? I’m not allowed to express an opinion? I thought this was a free country.”

  “Well, you’ve got to admit you used some strong language. Saying that the committee’s work was an ‘ill-disguised attempt to medicalize ordinary sadness, thereby stigmatizing healthy individuals and further lining the pockets of Big Pharma’ might have been a tad aggressive.”

  I shrugged.

  “As well as mentioning that several of the committee members got speaker fees for appearing at drug-company events.”

  “I didn’t name names, did I?” I protested. “And besides, it’s a clear conflict of interest.”

  “True, but everyone knows you were aiming a spear directly at Jonathan’s tiny little heart. He’s not going to take this lying down.”

  I considered this. “Do you think Sep will get involved?”

  “Nah. As you say, you’re entitled to an opinion. And you made a lot of points Sep would probably agree with if he didn’t always have to be the one holding up the big tent. I’m just saying you might want to stay out of Jonathan’s way for a few days.”

  “How am I supposed to do that?” I complained. “Wear night goggles?”

  “Got me. But I’d advise you to watch out for the scent of Hugo Boss.”

  After Josh left I switched on my computer. Unlike some of my fellow travelers, I kept it hooked up to a monitor. It felt more natural to be sitting in front of one, even if the only thing I could see of it was a milky-white lozenge floating above my keyboard. The latter had a refreshable Braille display, a narrow strip in front with three rows of metal pins that moved up and down according to the text appearing on the screen. I could read by running my fingers over them, or by listening to a software program that spoke the words aloud. I chose one or the other depending on my mood and need for speed. At its fastest setting, the voiceover reminded me of the Star Trek episode (appropriately titled “Wink of an Eye”) where hyper-accelerated aliens take over the Enterprise. But I was trained to make sense of its gibberish and usually resorted to my much-slower digits only when my ears started to ring.

  When the screen came to life I moved the cursor with my arrow keys until the program told me it was over my e-mail box. I pressed Enter to open it and began to browse the subject lines, automatically deleting the spam that seemed to slip past my hospital’s filter with the regularity of illegal aliens crossing the border. There were a handful of practice alerts that I moved to a special folder for reading later on, and a dozen or so urgent inquiries that I answered right away. An Alzheimer’s patient had been admitted that morning complaining of chest pains, and I spoke briefly with her attending about the anti-anxiety medication she was on. I sent in a couple of prescription renewals and chatted on the phone with an Iraq War veteran I was treating for PTSD. I then set to work tackling the miscellany—departmental memos, billing questions—saving for last correspondence from the attorneys I worked with. One in particular caught my eye (so to speak), and I turned again to my phone. Rusty Halloran picked up on the second ring.

  “Doctor Mid-Nite,” he bellowed over the receiver. “You got my message.”

  “What happened to Doctor Doom?”

  “I thought I ought to lighten up on you. How goes it over there in the loony bin? Knocked off any patients this week?”

  “If I had, I wouldn’t turn to you for advice.” I was ribbing him. Rusty was one of the best trial lawyers in the city. Scrupulous to a fault, he defied all stereotypes of the fee-chasing, ethically challenged attorney and had managed to make a good living at it for close to forty years. Like me, he’d survived the rhetorical meat grinder of a Jesuit education and only took on cases he believed in, which invariably assumed the character of a holy crusade against the combined forces of Lex Luthor, the Joker, and Magneto, with Darth Vader thrown in for objectivity’s sake. Needless to say, we got along famously.

  “How’s Deandra doing?” I asked.

  Deandra Williams was a pro-bono client who’d made the headlines after hearing voices in her head directing her to place her two-month-old infant in the barrel of a dryer at her local Soap ’n’ Spin. Another patron had rescued the child before any serious injury took place, but the authorities had decided to prosecute Deandra for attempted murder anyway. It was one of the clearest cases of post-partum psychosis I’d ever encountered, and I’d been hired by Rusty to give testimony that Deandra wasn’t responsible for her actions under the McNaughton rule. The jury apparently agreed with me because they’d brought in the lesser verdict of criminal negligence, a charge better suited to Deandra’s crime of being poor, uneducated, and without access to psychiatric care. She was now serving a five-year suspended sentence.

  “Much better after the free counseling you arranged for her. Last time we spoke she was working on getting her GED.”

  “And the child?”

  “Living with his grandmother, though Deandra has high hopes of getting custody back down the road.”

  “That’s great. Wish her well for me. So what was so urgent that it required all the exclamation points? You know the machine reads them to me one by one? Along with the emoticons—‘colon right parenthesis.’”

  �
�Not exactly a smiley face, then. I’ll keep that in mind. Got a job for you if you’re interested.”

  “Go on.”

  “One of your kind.”

  “Sight-deprived?”

  “No, a head shrinker. Wife sits with Betsy on the Woman’s Board. Private practice in Winnetka, specializing in adolescents. With all the New Trier students nearby he’s not hurting for business.” He named a name and asked me if I knew the fellow.

  “Don’t think so,” I said.

  “Good. Better that way. Anyhow, a little while back one of the tykes he was treating drove his daddy’s Porsche into a hundred-year-old oak at the bottom of the Ravine. Maybe you read about it in the paper.”

  I hadn’t, but I knew the place he was talking about. A section of Sheridan Road that snaked through one of the steep gullies carved into the glacial drift along Lake Michigan’s north shore. Narrow and filled with sharp turns, it was the closest thing Chicago had to Mulholland Drive. Cyclists willing to ignore the posted ban loved it, and I’d sneaked more than one adrenaline rush there when I could still ride outdoors.

  “Was he alone?”

  “Apparently.”

  “Drinking?”

  “Not according to the medical examiner. The only thing they found were traces of a prescription antidepressant, pretty standard for kids in that neck of the woods. Promising lad,” he went on, “varsity swimming and an athletic scholarship to Minnesota in the fall. Police were ready to call it an accident until something that suggested suicidal thinking turned up on the boy’s Facebook page.”

  “A note of some sort?”

  “Not exactly. A link to a video on that YouTube thing. After my time, but maybe not yours. Band called Blue Öyster Cult. You remember them?”

  I was afraid I did, along with their biggest hit—Don’t Fear the Reaper. It was all over the charts when I was in my teens, and I still sometimes found myself humming the layered, haunting refrain. We can be like they are. Come on baby . . .

  “I’m also dating myself, but sure.”

  “Watched the clip myself the other day. Can’t say I cared for the music. But then I grew up snapping my fingers to Dave Brubeck. You can guess what this is all leading to.”

  “The doc’s being sued for not recognizing the risk.”

  “Bulls-eye.”

  I was skeptical. “A link to a song doesn’t prove much.”

  “True. But the parents don’t want to believe their golden child just upped and killed himself. Tragedy always goes down easier when you can find someone else to blame. I’d be scrubbing floors for a living if it were otherwise.”

  “Still, this doesn’t sound like your usual.”

  “It isn’t. But the missus is insisting. And you know how I like an uphill battle.”

  “Has this ever happened to him before—a lawsuit?”

  “Nope. His record’s clean as a whistle.”

  “So why are you down on his chances?”

  “Psychology. You ought to know. If the case goes to trial, the sympathy will be all with the boy’s parents. The jury won’t be able to ignore the fact that the patient died on the operating room table even if there wasn’t a missing scalpel in his gut. It’s why this kind of lawsuit usually settles—quickly and quietly. The carrier is willing to put forth a reasonable offer, but our friend won’t even listen to the idea. Insists he followed professional standards, and he’ll be damned if he admits to malpractice just so the boy’s parents can sleep easier at night.”

  “So where do I fit in?”

  “For now, I was hoping you could help me talk some sense into him. Sit in on an interview, take a look at the file. There’ll be warts on his story—there always are. Maybe not enough to condemn him in the abstract, but enough to make him think about what a wrongful death verdict will do to his premiums.”

  “And if I think he’s squeaky clean?”

  “Then we’ll take it from there. Are you game?”

  I thought about it. Since I’d begun doing it, most of my expert engagements had involved the poor and relatively downtrodden. A well-off shrink in a malpractice suit wasn’t an obvious candidate for my sympathy. But if the guy had never been in trouble before . . . I put myself in his shoes. Maybe he was just being defensive; maybe he really had done everything by the book. Either way, I knew what he was going through. I lived with the same soul-crushing doubt every waking moment. If nothing else, maybe I could help him sleep better at night.

  “OK,” I said. “But no promises about what I’ll conclude.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  We made arrangements to meet at Rusty’s office in a few days’ time. In the meantime, he’d send over a copy of the file. After setting down the receiver, I sat still for a moment before remembering it was late in the day and checking my watch. 5:25. If I didn’t race out the door that minute, I’d be late for my date with Hallie and could look forward to a death-defying sprint through traffic to get to the Court Theater on time. I grabbed my jacket and cane from the door, turned the knob, and ran straight into . . . Jonathan.

  A few hours later, Hallie was still giving me the Sub Zero treatment over missing the first act of Mourning Becomes Electra.

  “It’s not my fault there was a Kenny Chesney concert at Soldier Field.”

  Hallie didn’t answer.

  “Or that there was a speed trap just after the Eisenhower.”

  She coasted her MG down a ramp.

  “I said I’d pay for the ticket, didn’t I?”

  More silence.

  Hallie and I had met the previous spring. A mentally handicapped patient of mine, Charlie Dickerson, was talked into a murder confession by the police, and not understanding what I was getting into, I volunteered to testify that he wasn’t competent to waive his Miranda rights. If you put aside some of my youthful near-misses with the law, it was my first introduction to the criminal justice system. Under Hallie’s tutelage, I’d learned all the tricks in trade of an expert witness: how to sound spontaneous despite long hours of rehearsal, when to offer information and when to shut up, and most important of all, what to do when opposing counsel has just driven a stake through the heart of your testimony. (Smile pleasantly and act as though nothing has happened.) My first cross-examination was abysmal, but it hooked me on courtroom work, and to my surprise, many lawyers found my blindness a plus. It mesmerized juries and spooked the other side, who handled me with uncommon courtesy to avoid appearing insensitive to the handicapped. I soon found myself in demand as a hired gun, which pleased my hospital’s publicity department even if it fueled the resentment of colleagues like Jonathan.

  Hallie was smart, funny, and direct. Based on Josh’s survey, she was also wildly attractive, with the Latin coloring and ample curves I’d always found hardest to resist. She had a sweet scent that hovered between fresh figs and vanilla, and a husky contralto I could listen to for hours. And those weren’t her only attractions. Her older brother, Geraldo, was born two months early during the sixties, when preemies were still treated with artificially high levels of oxygen to speed their lung development. Gerry’s lungs turned out fine; his retinas didn’t fare as well. Growing up with a blind sibling meant Hallie was immune to the tortured syntax and irritating over-solicitousness I’d come to expect from virtually all new acquaintances. Words like look and see didn’t stick in her throat, her directions were never more than I needed, and she didn’t hesitate to tell me when there was ketchup on my tie. Best of all, if she harbored any sympathy for me, she kept it to herself.

  My feelings for Hallie were far from casual, but so far I’d pretended not to notice that she wanted more out of our relationship than a BFF. My therapist was disappointed. His name was Harvey, which inevitably made me think of a large, pale person with over-developed ears, when in fact (easy to tell) he was no taller than me. I’d been seeing him once a week, part of a deal I’d struck with Sep when I was in danger of losing my job. According to Harvey, healthy relationships with the oppo
site sex were part of my Learning To Forgive Myself program, which sounded a lot like Alcoholics Anonymous minus the abstinence and all the meetings. (Step One: admit you are powerless before your guilt. Step Two: admit you need help from a “higher power” you aren’t quite sure you believe in.) Harvey thought Hallie was good for me, overriding my objection that I’d only end up driving her away. “If you’re comfortable with her and she with you, that’s all that matters at this point. Stop overanalyzing the situation,” he said. Which was funny advice coming from another shrink.

  Hallie brought the car to a stop in front of my building and yanked irascibly at the emergency brake while I attempted to get the conversation going again. “Are you still there? I’m beginning to feel like Helen Keller.”

  “Then you’ll understand why my lips aren’t moving.”

  Ouch. This was worse than I’d thought. I turned in my seat to face her, aiming for a contrite expression. “Is there anything I can do to make it up to you? I could stand on my head. Or perform a song and dance routine with my cane.”

  She relented a bit. “You could start by pretending you had a good time tonight.”

  “What do you mean? I enjoyed every minute of it.”

  “Nice try. You were fidgeting so much I’m surprised they didn’t charge you for a new carpet square. The couple next to you kept looking over, trying to get my attention. I think they were worried you were going to start foaming at the mouth.”

  I squirmed under the description. I’d always been a bit loose around the knee, but the tendency had grown much worse since I lost my sight, especially when I was feeling tense. “That bad, huh? OK, I admit I found four hours of incest, adultery, murder, and suicide a little hard to stomach.”

  “I thought so.”

  “And I wasn’t crazy about the ending, either.”

  “Why? What was wrong with it?”

  “Orin’s suicide. Remember the play notes you read to me while we were waiting to get in? The ones about the Greek myth the play is based on? In the Agamemnon cycle, Athena pardons Orestes so he doesn’t have to spend the rest of his life being driven insane by the Furies. O’Neill should have stuck to the original.”